Oral Answers to Questions

ENVIRONMENT, FOOD AND RURAL AFFAIRS

The Secretary of State was asked—

Foot and Mouth Disease

Nicholas Winterton: What assessment he has made of the effectiveness of the Government's response to the recent outbreak of foot and mouth disease; and if he will make a statement.

Hilary Benn: We put our contingency plan into operation as soon as there was confirmation of foot and mouth disease. Two and a half months on, it has been contained in a small part of the country. Nevertheless, we are committed to learning the lessons from this and all disease outbreaks, and we have therefore asked Dr. lain Anderson, who conducted an inquiry into the 2001 outbreak, to chair a review.

Nicholas Winterton: I am grateful to the Secretary of State for that rational and helpful reply. My constituency of Macclesfield is a predominantly livestock farming area. Livestock farmers have sustained huge losses. A little earlier this month, he announced a compensation package of £12.5 million. How widely do the Government anticipate that the package will be distributed? Will it adequately recompense livestock farmers throughout the United Kingdom for the huge losses that they have sustained?

Hilary Benn: I recognise the real difficulties that the livestock industry in particular is facing as a result of the outbreak, which could not have come at a worse time of year. The support that I announced to the House when we returned after the summer recess was for those who have been most adversely affected, who are, indeed, the hill farmers. As well as containing the disease with a view to eradicating it, we have tried throughout to get the market working again. In all parts of the country, except the remaining small risk area, all the restrictions that have been put in place domestically have now gone. The ones that remain are the result of the European Union rules, but we have already seen in the past two weeks a further easing of those restrictions to allow exports to resume. I am clear in my mind that the best thing that we can do is help the industry recover, but I know that it is going to be very tough and extremely difficult.

Ian Cawsey: In last week's debate on foot and mouth, I referred to the pig sector and the problems that the outbreak has caused for it. I asked for assistance for that sector, perhaps through storage aid or a sow disposal scheme. My hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, the hon. Member for Chatham and Aylesford (Jonathan Shaw), who responded to the debate, said that the team would be working closely with pig industry leaders to try to assist them. Can my right hon. Friend update the House on progress since?

Hilary Benn: I can tell my hon. Friend that that discussion with representatives of the pig industry and of all parts of the livestock industry has been a very strong feature of the way in which we have tried to handle the outbreak. A decision was taken on Monday at the Agriculture Council meeting to open a scheme for private storage in respect of pigs, following a request from Poland, which it made because of the difficulties that it is facing. I repeat what I said a moment ago. With the easing of restrictions and the lifting of all those put in place domestically, I hope that the industry will find that it now has the opportunity to recover, albeit that it will take time.

Elfyn Llwyd: Following on from last week's debate on compensation and so on, may I press the right hon. Gentleman on one question? If the Agriculture Minister in Wales were to apply to the Treasury for special funding in these special circumstances, would the Secretary of State lend his weight to the application and support it?

Hilary Benn: As I told the House when I made the statement, it is open to each of us—I have to manage the cost of the schemes that I have put in place and the assistance that I have given in relation to England—and to the devolved Administrations to have that conversation if they wish. However, it is not unreasonable in the circumstances, given that we do not yet know what the full cost of the outbreak will be, for each of us to bear the costs for the time being of the schemes that we think are appropriate for the parts of the country for which we have responsibility. That is what I have done for England, and the Welsh Agriculture Minister has done the same in Wales, as have the Scottish Executive in Scotland.

Tom Clarke: Is my right hon. Friend aware that this problem impacted even on largely industrial constituencies such as mine? The company Devro, which exports sausage skins to many parts of the world—Europe, Africa and so on—and has locations in both Moodiesburn and Bellshill, clearly needed certificates of clearance. His Department was enormously helpful. Given the horrendous demands that must have been placed on it, I want to take this opportunity to say thank you on the company's behalf.

Hilary Benn: I am grateful for my right hon. Friend's words. I take this opportunity to echo those thanks—to the Department officials, vets and animal health staff who have worked phenomenally hard in the past two and a half months to deal with the consequences. They have worked not only to contain the outbreak but to give every assistance to those caught up in it. The reopening of the meat product export market to the rest of Europe—exports to the rest of the world will take some time to resume—has probably been the most important step. Those exports are now gradually happening.

Tim Farron: The hill farm allowance supplement is an average £850 for an individual farmer and the average hill farmer in my constituency has lost in the region of £10,000 to £20,000 in the past few weeks. Given that the Government are culpable for the outbreak, does the Secretary of State feel that the additional support that they have provided is sufficient?

Hilary Benn: I recognise that the support will not help to meet all the costs, but it is not this Government's policy—it has never been any Government's—to provide full compensation for economic loss.
	Why did I take the decision to help hill farmers? I did that because, as was said a moment ago, hill farmers have faced the greatest difficulties as a result of what has happened. The £8.5 million will provide some additional assistance and, I hope, give hill farmers slightly more options, albeit in very difficult circumstances. We should recognise that the markets are operating again—that includes the resumption of exports to Europe—and that that has released the most important blockage that the hill farmers were facing.

Paddy Tipping: The Secretary of State has just stressed the importance of learning from disease outbreaks. One of the lessons of the 2001 outbreak was that the decision to close the countryside to visitors led to enormous economic consequences. Does he understand that although farming is important, the value brought by people who visit rural communities and boost the rural economy is more significant?

Hilary Benn: They are both significant and both extremely important. My hon. Friend is absolutely right—we have sought to learn the lessons from 2001, which include the advice given by Dr. Iain Anderson. That is why he is entirely the right person to come back and say how we have all done on this occasion.
	My hon. Friend is right to say that rural communities benefit enormously from such wider economic activity. We have handled the footpath closures in the protection zones correctly, but, like the industry more broadly, we have been clear about sending out the message that the countryside is open for business. It is important that people continue to enjoy the countryside and bring economic activity to it, to help those who would otherwise be affected in addition to the farmers, who have suffered so much.

Richard Bacon: I telephoned a leading farmer the day after the foot and mouth outbreak was announced, and was surprised to find that I was the one informing him about it. Given that, for years, automatic electronic telephone calls have been used to sell financial services, when will the Department make sure that they—not only text messages—are used to give farmers the earliest possible information about notifiable disease emergencies?

Hilary Benn: We have been using both text messages and automated telephone messages. Furthermore, we have been delivering information packs to affected farmers in the protection zones. However, we have to recognise that the media are one way in which we all get our news; I would be surprised if many farmers in the country had not been aware, first, of the outbreak, and secondly, of the imposition of movement controls. We all have a part to play, and I pay tribute to the efforts not only of Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs staff but of the National Farmers Union and other organisations, including those representing different sectors. They played an important part in reinforcing the message to their members.

Roger Williams: At one stage of the outbreak, the chief veterinary officer declared that the UK was free of foot and mouth. If that had not happened, many of the hill farming industry's problems would not have occurred. Was that declaration made because the surveillance area was not great enough, and will the Government learn the lessons?

Hilary Benn: Of course we will reflect on the lessons. That is why we have been so quick to invite Dr. Anderson to establish the review. In my view, the decision taken on 8 September was absolutely right in the light of our knowledge at the time; it was a month and a bit since a case had been confirmed, and the decision was confirmed by the European Union, which looked at all the evidence.
	Why was there the further case? As we now know from the epidemiological report, which we published at every stage, in the interests of openness, the animals on one of the premises—infected premises No. 5, as it is described—had had foot and mouth and the lesions were between three and four weeks old. That reinforces our point throughout that the first line of defence in overcoming the disease is farmers' vigilance. That case went undetected for whatever reason, and was therefore unreported. Had it been reported, the situation would have been different. Our decision at the time was right in the light of the evidence that we had.

James Paice: This outbreak has already, at the latest estimate, cost English farmers well over £100 million. Two weeks ago, as we heard, the Secretary of State announced a package of £12 million. On Monday this week, in a written answer, the Under-Secretary, the hon. Member for Chatham and Aylesford (Jonathan Shaw), told me that no conclusions had yet been reached on cost sharing or the estimate of the element of those costs falling to farmers. Will the Secretary of State confirm that the comprehensive spending review clearly states that an increased share of responsibility and cost-sharing will save DEFRA £121 million over three years, which is £40 million in extra costs to farmers each year—more than three times the package that he announced?

Hilary Benn: Yes, I am happy to confirm that that is the case. I will be frank with the hon. Gentleman—we need to change the system. There are already different approaches in relation to different parts of the livestock sector. The truth is that if one was designing a system from scratch today, it would not look like the system that we have; we all know that. The deal to be done is to give the livestock industry much greater say over how the controls on animal disease outbreaks affecting animals only—not zoonotic diseases because we, as the Government, have a public health interest—are applied and lifted. We have worked in partnership with the industry in dealing with this and in, in return for that, there should be recognition that the costs of dealing with preventing disease and coping with outbreaks should fall more upon the industry. I think that that is the right way to go. This is very difficult anyway—especially so in the circumstances that we have just been through—but dealing with these outbreaks over the past two and a half months has brought it home to me that we should have a different system, and that is what I want to try to get agreement on.

Flood Risk

Graham Stuart: What recent discussions he has had with the insurance industry on flood risk.

Hilary Benn: I am in regular contact, as are ministerial colleagues and officials, with the insurance industry and the Association of British Insurers. We are working together to ensure the continued widespread availability of flood insurance cover through the association's statement of principles.

Graham Stuart: I thank the Minister for that answer. He will be aware that it is now estimated that more than £3 billion is to be paid out by the insurance industry. How can my constituents be sure of keeping their flood insurance cover when only just over 40 per cent. of flood defences are properly maintained by the Environment Agency and when the increase in flood defence spending by 2010-11 will return us only to the level that we were at in 2004, before this year's devastating floods? Can he give reassurance to my constituents and confirm that those in rural areas will not be neglected in order to put all the emphasis on urban areas?

Hilary Benn: The hon. Gentleman and I have discussed this issue so I am very aware of the impact that the flooding had on his constituents in Burstwick and Hedon. I would say to his constituents that the increase in funding that I announced at the beginning of July and the way in which that is going to be phased in between now and 2010-11 is a direct response to the requests that many people have made of us, including the Association of British Insurers. In June, it asked us to get up to £750 million a year by 2010-11; in fact, we are going to be spending £800 million a year by 2010-11. That is why, when I announced that figure, the ABI said that this was the news that homeowners had wanted to hear. I recognise that there has been a second round of flooding since then. I am very keen that we continue to work in partnership with the ABI as we significantly increase spending on flood defence, building on the doubling of investment over the past decade so that we can keep that statement of principles in place and therefore protect the hon. Gentleman's constituents.

David Kidney: Following this summer's flooding, my survey of 4,000 households in my constituency tells me that people would support my right hon. Friend's Department giving incentives to landowners to manage their land in ways that help to prevent floods—not just the normal daily work of keeping watercourses and gullies free from obstructions but proactively, for example, by creating new water meadows and other wetland. Will he change the conditions for the single payment and the schemes for stewardship of land in order to give that incentive to landowners?

Hilary Benn: My hon. Friend raises an interesting and important point. Of course, there is already land that naturally floods during the winter, but the problem for some of the farmers whom I met was that they did not expect it to flood in that way during the summer, so it came at a bad time of the year and affected their ability to get their crops out of the ground. Yes, the Environment Agency does need to consider all the ways in which we can accommodate astonishing flows of water of the kind that we saw in June and July.
	It is debatable whether landowners have to be paid to do that because in the winter they provide such flood capacity naturally. However, one lesson that we have learned from all of this—Sir Michael Pitt will be drawing all of them together in his lessons-learned review—is that we have to look at the inter-relationship of the ways in which water can escape when we have the astonishing amount of rainfall that we experienced during the summer. If my hon. Friend has not already done so, he might like to pass on the result of his consultation to Sir Michael Pitt so that he can consider it in his review.

John Maples: In my constituency, we have had two "one in 30 years" floods in nine years, and the last time 2,000 properties flooded. The owners of those properties are worried that they will not be able to get insurance in the future. I suggest two things that the Secretary of State could do to help. First, there are too many agencies with responsibilities for different parts of the problem. It would be helpful if he were to put the Environment Agency in some sort of overall co-ordinating role.
	Secondly, if we are to do a proper cost-benefit analysis of the flood defences that we can afford and make sense of, we need a comprehensive survey of what could be done about each little bit of local flooding. I suggest that the Environment Agency should either do that, or commission someone to do it. Without it, we cannot make the decisions on whether particular flood defences are economically sensible.

Hilary Benn: Those are two good suggestions. We were already consulting on giving the Environment Agency such responsibility, particularly in relation to surface water flooding. The hon. Gentleman is right; a lot of disparate organisations have responsibility for different bits of the surface water drainage system. I want to take on board whatever Sir Michael Pitt has to say, but I am keen that we make progress on the matter, because it definitely reflects one of the lessons that we learned from the summer, particularly from what happened in Hull.
	Secondly, the Environment Agency needs to look at the range of potential schemes, but even with the additional funding that we are putting in place, there has to be a system for deciding on prioritisation of where the money will be spent. The Environment Agency has already been reviewing the points system that it uses to weigh the different considerations in reaching a decision, which is a process that I support. We recognise that a decision will have to be taken to fund one thing rather than something else, but at least we have more money with which to take that decision than was the case in the past.

Martin Salter: In addition to welcoming the sensible suggestions made by my hon. Friend the Member for Stafford (Mr. Kidney) about managing river valleys so that their uplands are not intensively farmed or left in a situation where flood water can rush down them, will the Secretary of State consider earmarking some of the welcome investment in flood relief and flood defence schemes for the overhauling of antiquated surface water drainage systems? They are not up to the job, and caused as many problems as flooding from river valleys itself.

Hilary Benn: Now that I have announced the phasing of the increase in funding over the next three years, the Environment Agency will be in a position to plan. It will need to talk to local authorities about surface water drainage. The truth about such drainage is that we have a system that was built between 100 and 150 years ago, at a time when people did not expect to have to cope with the amounts of water that we have recently seen. The second problem is that we have concreted, covered with tarmac and paved over a lot of the surface land in our towns and cities, so when it rains to such an extent, there are fewer places for the water to go. It is not soaked up by the ground that is already saturated. Those are some of the lessons we have to learn. It will be a combination of improving capacity and ensuring that new drainage is built to a higher specification than was the case in the past, but we need to ask what more we can do in towns and cities to improve capacity to enable water to run off when we have rain of that sort.

Martin Horwood: I appreciate the Secretary of State's interest in the impact of flooding in Gloucestershire, and in my constituency in particular. There are two issues that I would like him to raise with the insurers. First, is it wise to keep building planned houses on areas that flooded in July, such as Leckhampton in my constituency? Will the homes built there be insurable at any economic premium? Secondly, will the insurers be able to expedite payments to small businesses affected by the flooding? Many of them are still waiting for compensation months later, with an obvious impact on their cash flow, their bank charges and the interest that they pay on their overdrafts.

Hilary Benn: On the second point, I am happy to pass on the hon. Gentleman's point to the industry. However, from my conversations with many people who were affected, including those in his constituency, and with hon. Members, it appears that the insurance industry responded well by and large in terms of sending assessors. I understand the point about payment; quite a lot has already been paid out.
	On the first point, the hon. Gentleman knows that we have considerably strengthened the guidance in planning policy statement 25. We have given the Environment Agency, which is the expert on where there is a risk of flooding, a statutory right to be consulted. Ministers, of course, have a right to call in proposals. In the light of the strengthened guidance, it is a continuing responsibility on local authorities to ask themselves whether, if they intend to build on a flood plain, they can adequately defend against a risk that is increasing because the climate is changing. Approximately 2 million homes in the country are built on a flood plain. The building that we are in now is on a flood plain, but it has a defence. Local authorities must weigh that up when making decisions so that we do not add to the problems.

Anne McIntosh: May I record my personal thanks to the Association of British Insurers, the managing director of which visited the Vale of York when it was flooded for the second time in 2005? Does the Secretary of State see fit to give an undertaking that water companies in future will be consulted on all new developments on the flood plain so that they can ascertain whether they should go ahead rather than being deemed fit simply to connect water and sewerage to new developments?
	In reply to the question asked by my hon. Friend the Member for Stratford-on-Avon (Mr. Maples) about the involvement of too many bodies, the Secretary of State referred to predicting ways in which water will escape. Does he acknowledge that too many bodies are involved in mapping future flood risk? They include the Met Office, the Environment Agency, the ABI, individual insurance companies and district councils. Should not one body be made responsible for mapping possible future flood risk?

Hilary Benn: On the second point, there is a problem, especially in relation to surface water flooding. Although the Environment Agency maps for river flooding, it is hard, if not impossible, to predict where surface water flooding will occur because one has to know the volume of rain that will fall, exactly where it will fall and the gradient of the ground, and then assess the capacity of the drainage system. It is a problem, but I am sure that Sir Michael Pitt's review will consider it.
	Water companies' interest is principally in the capacity to supply water to new developments. In the context of flood risk, the Environment Agency, to which we have given a statutory right to be consulted, is the body whose views we need to hear. However, all those matters should be considered because I am determined that we learn lessons so that we can do better in future.

Climate Change Bill

David Evennett: If he will make a statement on the Government's plans in relation to the Climate Change Bill.

Hilary Benn: The Government's response to pre-legislative scrutiny and public consultation on the draft Climate Change Bill will be laid in Parliament shortly, ahead of its introduction in the forthcoming parliamentary Session.

David Evennett: As climate change is one of the most important issues of our age, it is essential to set up a climate change committee that is independent of the Government. If the Government appoint the chairman and members of the committee, what criteria will be used? Will the Secretary of State guarantee that the committee will be independent?

Hilary Benn: I am happy to give the hon. Gentleman that assurance because the committee on climate change will be an important body, which will comprise people with the right expertise and skills. As he knows from the draft Climate Change Bill, it will have to take a range of considerations into account in advising the Government on the budgets and undertaking their other duties. If he will bear with us a little longer, he will see what happens. A genuine consultation has taken place—that is why I was strongly in favour of publishing the Bill in draft. The purpose of a consultation is to listen and respond to the arguments. I intend to do exactly that.

Rob Marris: Some people are asking the Government to embrace a target of an 80 per cent. cut in CO2 instead of the ambitious and laudable target of 60 per cent. Will my right hon. Friend assure me that he will resist the requests for 80 per cent., which could be perceived as posturing by today's politicians, who will not be active in 2050, and concentrate more than hitherto on tackling the effects of climate change? Will he strengthen that aspect of the Bill to ensure that the Government put in place further measures quickly to adapt to the climate change that we are already experiencing, such as the flooding that we have discussed? We have the crazy example of Wessex Water in 2000 asking Ofwat to install bigger pipes but not being allowed to do so.

Hilary Benn: The truth is that we have to do both. It is not a competition between mitigation and adaptation, because we are going to have to learn to live with the change in our climate that has already taken place, while we work as hard as we can to ensure that we avoid catastrophic further change, so I very much take the point about adaptation.
	As for the figure for the reduction in carbon emissions that we need in the UK, the draft Bill talks about at least 60 per cent. My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister announced last month that we will ask the committee on climate change—the independent experts who will advise the Government—whether that target is strong enough in the light of the changing science. I am clear that that is absolutely the right thing to do, because as circumstances change and we have a greater understanding of what is happening, it is right to ask whether we need to change the policy and the approach that we take in response. That is a much better way of answering the question than plucking a figure out of the air.

Richard Ottaway: How can the Secretary of State speak so freely about climate change when by any standard or test the Government are consistently failing their own targets?

Hilary Benn: With respect to the hon. Gentleman, I do not agree. First, if we take the commitment that we entered into in signing up to the Kyoto protocol—

Richard Ottaway: We?

Hilary Benn: Well, the UK signed up to it. Not only are we going to meet the commitments that we entered into but we are likely to meet nearly double those commitments. The UK is one of the few industrial countries in the world to do so. Can the hon. Gentleman name another country in the world that is about to put legislation before its Parliament that will put on the statute book a statutory commitment to reduce emissions in the way that we propose to do? Can he name another country in the world that has done more to argue the case for an international agreement as a successor to the Kyoto protocol? The answer is that he cannot do so. That is an indication of the seriousness with which the Government take the need to deal with climate change.

Mark Lazarowicz: The committee on climate change is an important part of the draft Climate Change Bill. When my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs gave evidence to the Joint Committee on the draft Climate Change Bill earlier this year, he indicated that the committee on climate change would be set up at an early date and that a shadow committee might even be set up in advance of the full legislation coming into force, so as to start work at an early stage. If the idea of setting up a shadow committee soon is not already in the Government's response to the Joint Committee's report, will the Secretary of State slip it into that response quickly and try to get the shadow committee set up soon?

Hilary Benn: Well, with a little patience my hon. Friend will see the answer, but of course we are determined to make that happen as quickly as possible.

Christopher Huhne: I received a rather alarming answer to a question that I put to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, in which I asked whether the Climate Change Bill would require a lower level of emissions in the period 2008 to 2012 than in the preceding five years and whether the level for every future budget period would be set lower than that. The answer was extremely non-committal and simply said that the committee on climate change would advise the Government on the pathway. Can the Secretary of State seriously imagine circumstances in which the carbon emissions budget for 2008 to 2012 would actually be higher than the carbon emissions for the previous five years? Can he not also give a firm commitment that the committee on climate change will be asked to advise him on reductions in carbon emissions?

Hilary Benn: I am happy to give the hon. Gentleman that commitment. Of course the committee on climate change will advise on reductions in carbon emissions, because how else would we have any prospect of reaching a reduction of at least 60 per cent. by 2050? If he had listened to what I said in response to the hon. Member for Bexleyheath and Crayford (Mr. Evennett), he would know that the committee on climate change will be independent. He is asking us to do the committee's job for it, but I do not propose to do that. We are setting the framework. We are setting a clear target that we must achieve to reduce carbon emissions, but it is right and proper that the committee on climate change, in giving us advice on the first three five-year budgets, should be the body that advises us on what the pathways should be, and that is exactly what it will do.

Patrick Hall: On that very theme, my right hon. Friend will know that one of the key messages in the Stern review is that we must take strong early action to tackle climate change. As others have pointed out, because carbon dioxide lasts for about 100 or so years in the atmosphere, we must take early action to stop its accumulation, not just aim for a lower emission target in the future. Does my right hon. Friend agree and does he see the Bill as helping to address that through five-year carbon budgets?

Hilary Benn: I agree completely with my hon. Friend, which is why we are about to bring forward such a Bill and, indeed, to be the first country in the world to do so.

Peter Ainsworth: I am sure that the whole House will be intrigued to find out exactly what the Climate Change Bill contains when we finally get to see it. Recent reports that the Government are planning to abandon their commitment to the 2020 European target for renewable energy have again raised serious doubts over whether this Prime Minister takes climate change seriously at all. Will the Secretary of State take this opportunity categorically to state that the Government will not renege on their support for the European renewable energy target or are we looking yet again at a broken promise and another dumped target?

Hilary Benn: I simply ask the hon. Gentleman whether he listened to the Prime Minister's words in the House of Commons yesterday, where he expressed the Government's commitment to the target that we signed up to in the summer. The hon. Gentleman has heard it directly from the Prime Minister himself.

Waste Wood

Alan Whitehead: If he will take steps to divert waste wood destined for landfill into the production of energy.

Joan Ruddock: Our top priority is to encourage prevention or re-use of waste wood, wherever possible. However, recent research has concluded that there are significant energy and carbon benefits from recovering energy from waste wood, compared with sending it to landfill, where most of it currently goes. DEFRA is taking forward a programme of work to develop energy markets for waste wood by addressing the informational and practical barriers to expansion.

Alan Whitehead: I thank my hon. Friend for her reply. I am sure that she will recall the statement in "Climate Change the UK Programme 2006", suggesting that if waste wood that currently goes into landfill were diverted to use for fuel, that could account for more than 11 per cent. a year of the UK's carbon reduction targets. In that light, will she expedite and seek to achieve agreement on Environment Agency proposals for protocols on waste wood as a fuel resource?

Joan Ruddock: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that question, but I am sorry to have to tell him that, because of the lack of agreement on suitable controls and standards, the Environment Agency and the industry have not been able to produce a protocol. However, it is not all bad news and we hope that the industry itself will make further progress on protocols. The Environment Agency issued new guidance on 3 October, confirming the deregulation of virgin timber. That means that producers will be able to recover and sell on virgin waste wood, such as off-cuts, shavings and sawdust and, of course, the production that comes from the management of forests. Those will be free from regulatory control. Clean and treated non-virgin timber will remain classified as waste and regulated as normal through exemptions and waste legislation.

Michael Jack: The hon. Lady will understand that waste wood could be an important raw material source in the production of second-generation biofuels, whose importance becomes more apparent as we move towards the era of road transport fuels obligation and as we seek a solution to the food-fuel paradox. Not much seems to be happening in respect of developing second-generation biofuels in the UK, so will the Minister tell me what DEFRA is actually doing to take advantage of her own Government's assistance in this sector to see second generation become reality?

Joan Ruddock: DEFRA is dealing with the issue very actively. What is needed first is a collection of wood and other biodegradable materials such as food waste, all of which could be used for the production of renewable fuels, and that is being done in a number of ways. We have an infrastructure programme, research is taking place, and we have support from WRAP, the waste and resources action programme. There are a variety of ways in which we expect to be able to develop more infrastructure, because, following the collection of raw materials, the introduction of appropriate infrastructure is the key.
	WRAP is working on developing markets. We are also renewing the renewables obligation, and considering the possibility of its operating under a banded system. Electricity generated from waste wood, for example, would be eligible for support under the obligation.

David Taylor: Will my hon. Friend and Portcullis House neighbour accept an invitation to visit my constituency? It lies at the heart of the 200sq m national forest, where industries associated with waste wood are being developed at quite a rapid rate. If she does visit my constituency, will my hon. Friend visit Orchard primary school in Castle Donington—where I switched on a wood-pellet boiler some time ago—and observe the ways in which we can encourage public sector bodies such as schools, hospitals and police stations to install heating systems using materials of this kind?

Joan Ruddock: I should be very pleased to receive an invitation to visit my hon. Friend's constituency, if my diary permits such a visit.
	Such schemes are important, and we expect both the private and the public sector to be increasingly prepared to use wood as fuel. At present 7.5 million tonnes of waste wood arise each year, of which the vast majority—6 million tonnes—is disposed of as landfill. If it could be used in the production of energy, that would be enormously beneficial.
	My hon. Friend mentioned the forest in his area. The Forestry Commission has come up with an excellent plan in its wood fuel strategy for England, which it hopes will produce an additional 2 million tonnes of wood a year by 2020. It will be good-quality wood, and it will be possible to burn it and recover fuel very efficiently. It could supply 250,000 homes with energy.

Milk

John Spellar: What his Department's policy is on the effects on the environment of the sale of fresh milk in the UK; and if he will make a statement.

Jonathan R Shaw: DEFRA is working collaboratively with all parts of the dairy supply chain to reduce the environmental impacts of the production and consumption of fresh liquid milk.

John Spellar: The Minister will know of reports that civil servants proposed either to persuade or to coerce the British public to move away from fresh British milk towards UHT milk. Will he take this opportunity to inform us either that there was no truth in those stories, or that he has told the civil servants concerned to throw their proposals very firmly in the waste-paper bin?

Jonathan R Shaw: I am grateful for the opportunity to answer my right hon. Friend's question. There was a discussion document about the proposal, but it is not Government policy, never has been and never will be. Reports suggested that we would force people to drink UHT milk—which is considerably inferior to the fresh milk produced by British farmers—but I can tell my right hon. Friend that the story was and is a load of old bullocks.

Bill Wiggin: What is the cost of the product road-mapping? Would the money not be better spent on supporting the dairy sector, which has already been hit by bluetongue, foot and mouth and bovine tuberculosis? If refrigeration truly is an environmental problem, is the hon. Gentleman really going to be the Minister to tell people to drink their lager warm?

Jonathan R Shaw: Not lager, not milk. No, I am not going to tell consumers to do that. However, we do need to examine the environmental impact of farming. We have worked with representatives of farmers' groups from across the industry, and we are very grateful for the hard work that they have put in. There has been a good collaboration between DEFRA and the industry, and we want that to continue. If we can identify costs—particularly energy costs—and savings, that will be good for not just the environment, but the farmer.

Climate Change

Simon Hughes: If he will make a statement on progress towards a post-Kyoto global climate change agreement.

Hilary Benn: We have already seen progress this year with several key meetings, including the G8 leaders summit, which sent a clear signal on the need to advance international negotiations on a post-2012 framework, and the UN Secretary-General's high level event last month. We look forward to Bali, where the aim must be to reach agreement on starting negotiations on a new framework.

Simon Hughes: I am grateful to the Secretary of State for that answer. Bali, a major international conference, is just six weeks away. Can he give an undertaking that the attitude of Her Majesty's Government will be that countries such as the United States, which contributes 22 per cent. of the carbon dioxide in the world, will be forced to be part of the next agreement, to sign up to it and then to deliver, and that President Bush will not be allowed to stall discussions and agreements until after he has left office, thus setting back progress considerably globally as well as in north America itself?

Hilary Benn: I cannot force, and the United Kingdom Government cannot force, any other country to do anything, but when I was in New York for the high level event, I said that a post-2012 agreement that does not include emissions from the largest economy in the world is not going to do the job. We all know that. The fact that the US Administration now recognise that there is a thing called climate change and have begun to talk about it, is welcome. What is striking about the US is the extent to which policy is being led by the states. Look at what is happening in California and in the eastern states, which are developing their own emission trading scheme. Understanding is increasing, and that is moving the politics. I do not think anyone at the Bali conference will be in any doubt that we have to start those negotiations, because we do not have much time left to sort this out.

Andy Reed: While it is welcome that the United States is starting to move in the right direction, what is the Secretary of State's assessment of the commitment of other leading industrial nations, for example, China and India, to post-2012 Kyoto agreements?

Hilary Benn: We are seeing movement—look at the recent announcement that Australia made. However, my hon. Friend draws attention to the other thing on which we have to make progress. If we look at the G77, the group of developing countries, we cannot credibly argue that China, which will shortly be the largest emitter in the world, if it is not already, although not in per capita terms, should be regarded as in the same position as Mali or Burkina Faso. That would hinder efforts to make progress. So far, the agreements have talked about common but differentiated commitments, but in the course of negotiations wewill have to come to a view, as countries develop economically, about what commitments it is reasonable for them to take on to contribute to dealing with the problem.
	Even if the rich developed countries disappeared from the world tomorrow and took the emissions that we are currently producing with us, because of the concentration of carbon in the atmosphere and the rising carbon emissions in the developing world, it would be left to deal with the problem anyway. That makes the point that all of us have to play our part.

Gregory Barker: Britain has huge natural resources and financial and human capital to build the world's first low-carbon economy. Bali should be a key staging point on that mission, yet the global leadership we once exerted in those international forums is being undermined by the slow rate of genuine change and economic transformation at home. As the Secretary of State prepares for Bali, can he list any low carbon sectors or renewable technologies where the UK is now leading the world—not in their discovery or research, but in their commercialisation and market share?

Hilary Benn: I am very happy to give the hon. Gentleman some examples. We have just given the go ahead to what will be the world's largest offshore wind farm, the London Array. When it is completed, it will generate— [Interruption.] Well, we are getting on with it. When it is completed, it will generate enough electricity— [Interruption.] Having asked me the question, will he do me the courtesy of listening to the answer? It will generate enough electricity to power one in four homes in Greater London. That is what I call world leadership. We are undertaking a feasibility study of the Severn barrage, which could generate 5 per cent. of our electricity. Renewable electricity is set to increase threefold between now and 2015, and Ernst and Young, which does a renewable energy attractiveness survey, now ranks the UK equal second in the world behind only the United States. I would call that leadership.

Severn Barrage

Jessica Morden: How the Government plan to ensure that the views of wildlife groups are taken into account when considering the possibility of a Severn barrage.

Joan Ruddock: The Government intend to carry out the feasibility study announced on 25 September in an open and transparent way. The issue of how we can best engage with all the interested groups, including wildlife non-governmental organisations, will be considered in the development of the communications element of the study.

Jessica Morden: The Newport wetlands wildlife reserve, the compensatory habitat for Cardiff bay, is in my constituency. I support the drive to harness tidal energy in the Severn, but will my hon. Friend ensure that the feasibility study is truly independent and open and examines all the options and impacts? Will she ensure that wildlife groups such as the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds and the Wildlife Trust are listened to and are part of a stakeholder group during the process?

Joan Ruddock: The feasibility study is at an early stage and the project organisation and Government arrangements are being developed and are subject to ministerial approval. The work plans for the various issues are also at an early stage and we had our first cross-departmental working group meeting on 18 October. The detailed communications plan is being developed to ensure that appropriate stakeholder communication and engagement take place in an effective and appropriate way and at the right time. I am not in a position at the moment to guarantee the specific involvement of groups in any particular way, but I can assure my hon. Friend of the group's openness, transparency and willingness to consult. I hope that she and organisations such as the RSPB and Friends of the Earth will acknowledge that the Government have a good track record in consulting NGOs.

SOLICITOR-GENERAL

The Solicitor-General was asked—

Conviction Rates (Nottingham)

Paddy Tipping: What the conviction rate is for cases involving (a) rape and (b) domestic violence in Nottinghamshire; and if she will make a statement.

Vera Baird: During the year ending March 2007, a conviction was recorded in Nottinghamshire on Crown Prosecution Service figures in respect of 60.7 per cent. of all defendants whose case got as far as the CPS for an offence of rape, and in 59.5 per cent. in the cases of domestic violence. Nottinghamshire's outcome in cases of rape compared favourably with the national figure of 54.5 per cent, but in cases of domestic violence the conviction rate was short of the national figure of 65 per cent.

Paddy Tipping: Those are improving figures; congratulations to all involved. However, it remains the case that many women who appear before court feel that they are the accused rather than the victim. In that context, will my hon. and learned Friend look at the case about which I have just written to her concerning a constituent in Edwinstowe who has had that very experience?

Vera Baird: I certainly will and I have just received a letter from my hon. Friend about the case. He raises a problematic issue: the extent to which cross-examination should be allowed. Obviously, there must be a balance between the freedom for the defendant to test the case against him and his not being inappropriately oppressive and re-traumatising the victim. Judges and magistrates have a duty to control proceedings and to stop over-oppressive cross-examination. Our prosecutors now have a duty to do that as well. I will certainly look at the file about the case and I invite him to come and discuss it with me.

Inside Justice Week

Natascha Engel: What role the Law Officers' Departments are taking in Inside Justice week.

James McGovern: What role the Law Officers' Departments are taking in Inside Justice week.

Vera Baird: Inside Justice week is being supported by all of the Departments that the Attorney-General and I run so we are all playing a busy part. It was the idea of the Attorney-General some four years ago and its aim is to open up the criminal justice system to the public through a themed week of events, media opportunities and public engagement.

Natascha Engel: How is my hon. and learned Friend planning to promote the workings of the justice system within schools for the benefit of children and young people during Inside Justice week?

Vera Baird: The Crown Prosecution Service does a lot of fairly regular work with schools: mock trials; talks on restorative justice; and work on domestic violence awareness. The Attorney-General will be starting the week at Deptford Green school. On Friday, I shall be going, at the request of the head teacher, Mr. Hobbs, to talk to children at the terrific Bydales sustainable technology college, which is in Marske in my constituency. I shall probably talk about the Middlesbrough community court.

James McGovern: Inside Justice week offers a rare and perhaps even unique opportunity for young people to take a look inside the criminal justice system. Does the Solicitor-General agree that we should maximise the number of women participating in the numerous events taking place throughout the country to ensure that as many young women as possible are encouraged to consider a career in that system?

Vera Baird: My hon. Friend makes an important point, with which I thoroughly agree. The idea is to help young people in particular to understand that the criminal justice system is a part of keeping their neighbourhood safe, that justice is very important and is not a separate and arcane preserve, and that they have access to it, both if they need it for justice purposes and if they want to pursue a career in it.

David Howarth: I was slightly disappointed that the Solicitor-General did not specifically mention opening up the Attorney-General's own office as part of Inside Justice week, because a number of puzzles still exist about how the Department works. May I ask the Solicitor-General to clear up one particular puzzle? In February, the previous Attorney-General told the Select Committee on Constitutional Affairs that he would take independent counsel's advice on the cash-for-honours question and publish it. It turns out that neither of those things has been done. In the spirit of the openness of Inside Justice week, will she explain why?

Vera Baird: That is a remote link to Inside Justice week, if I may say so. I would not necessarily recommend opening up the Attorney-General's office in any physical sense, because people would probably find my neglected coffee cups there. I shall write to the hon. Gentleman about the issue that he raises, if there is anything to add to what he knows perfectly well.

David Winnick: I recognise that non-custodial sentences are often appropriate and, in certain circumstances, should be encouraged. My hon. and learned Friend was talking about justice a moment ago. What sort of justice is there when someone who was convicted of pushing and blinding a 96-year-old person did not receive a custodial sentence?

Mr. Speaker: Order. I let it slip with the hon. Member for Cambridge (David Howarth); we are not linking the question with specific cases, because that is not what it is about.

Dominic Grieve: May I first say that I welcome Inside Justice week and hope that it is a success? It looks, from the material that has been put out, that considerable emphasis has been placed on the role of the Attorney-General's office and the Crown Prosecution Service in supporting victims. May I also urge the Solicitor-General to draw attention in this week to the role of the CPS and the Attorney-General's office in preventing pointless prosecution? I am sure that she will agree that although they may be few in number, prosecutions of individuals for matters that are likely to appear trivial, for instance difficulties that teachers may have disciplining children or, indeed, people carrying out citizen's arrests, as in the Bridlington chip shop case, undermine confidence in the criminal justice system. If it could be seen that the CPS and the Attorney-General's guidelines ensured that prosecutions in such investigations were stopped at an early stage, a great deal of public reassurance would be derived.

Vera Baird: The hon. Gentleman makes a straightforward point—there must be balanced, good judgment, in accordance with the guidelines, about who to prosecute and who to forbear from prosecuting— and I agree with him. Part of our task in Inside Justice week is to make clear the basis on which such decisions are being made.

Sexual Assault Referral Centres

Julie Morgan: What steps sexual assault referral centres can take to support prosecutions for rape.

Vera Baird: There are now 18 sexual assault referral centres, with 18 more in development. They are usually joint projects between the police, the health services and the voluntary sector. They provide important early support and counselling for victims so that they are better able to be sustained to go through with any criminal prosecution and to give their best evidence in court.

Julie Morgan: I thank my hon. and learned Friend for that reply, and I am sure that she will be pleased to hear that building conversion work for the Cardiff centre will start next week. Is she aware that, since January, the women's safety unit in Cardiff has had 71 referrals of sexual assault, mainly rape? The unit has been able to offer help and support and to undertake the early evidence work, such as taking DNA samples. On the whole, the women involved do not want to go forward to prosecution, but that early work is done in case they change their minds. What more can the Government do to support that important work?

Vera Baird: My hon. Friend's city has a fine record of battling with issues of violence against women, and she has a fine record of championing these matters.
	It is a great pleasure to hear that Cardiff's sexual assault referral centre will come on-stream soon. We must spread the best practice across every area, and ensure that there is good quality practice in the SARCs. However, in due course—and probably early next month—we will publish our response to the previous Solicitor-General's consultation document on what more we can do to improve the quality of justice for rape victims. We have made advances in domestic violence through training relevant agencies, and we consider that it may be desirable for juries to receive information about the psychological reactions of rape victims. We want to help dispel myths about rape, and we consider that that might be achieved through a neutral document or judge's statement. We will publish our response formally in a month or so, and that ought to be a considerable step towards ensuring better justice for the sort of women supported by SARCs across the country.

Governance of Britain

Jack Straw: With permission, Mr. Speaker, I should like to make a statement about our programme of constitutional renewal. With this statement, three consultation documents are being published. The first, jointly by my right hon. Friends the Foreign and Defence Secretaries and myself, is in respect of parliamentary approval for war powers and treaties; the second, by me, is in respect of judicial appointments; and the third, by my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary, is in respect of protests in Parliament square. Copies of the documents are available in the Vote Office and on my Department's website.
	In his statement to the House on 3 July to launch the Green Paper entitled "The Governance of Britain", my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister set out his vision of a renewed relationship between Government and citizen. Among other things, he identified 12 areas in which
	"the Prime Minister and Executive should surrender or limit their powers, the exclusive exercise of which by the Government should have no place in a modern democracy."—[ Official Report, 3 July 2007; Vol. 462, c. 815.]
	Two of the most important prerogative powers are the power to deploy the armed forces overseas and the power to commit the nation to international legal obligations through the ratification of treaties.
	I turn first to war powers. On 15 May, the Government supported a motion in this House that declared that it was "inconceivable" that the precedents set in 2002 and 2003, when the Government sought the approval of this House for military action in Iraq, would not be followed in the future. The same motion called on the Government
	"to come forward with...detailed proposals"
	on how that convention should be entrenched. Today's consultation paper therefore explores a range of options, each aimed at formalising Parliament's role. It suggests that that might be achieved through a convention or legislation, or a combination of both. The consultation paper discusses the critical issues that any system would have to accommodate. It is essential that any new arrangements should not damage morale or hinder us in meeting our international obligations. They should not inhibit operational flexibility and the need for secrecy, nor inhibit our need to act in emergencies. In addition, of course, no members of our armed forces should be placed under any legal liability as a result of any new arrangements.
	The Government welcome views on how those objectives can best be achieved, and also on related questions. For instance, what is the role of the House of Lords in contributing to decisions by this place? How should we define "armed conflict" and "armed forces"? What information ought to be supplied to Parliament, and at what stage?
	I turn now to the ratification of treaties, which is already subject to a parliamentary convention introduced—I am pleased to say—by the first Labour Government, in 1924. For the cognoscenti, it is known as the Ponsonby rule, after the man who introduced it. According to the convention, and with certain exceptions, the Government must lay a treaty as a Command Paper before Parliament for a minimum of 21 sitting days before ratification. It is then for Parliament to determine which treaties it wishes to debate.
	The Government believe that there may be value in putting the convention on a statutory footing, to establish better Parliament's right to decide and to show that the actions of the Government are subject to the will of the people's representatives. The paper seeks views on how that can best be done, including on the detailed and important questions of exceptions to the existing convention, which include bilateral double taxation agreements, how a debate and vote on a treaty should be triggered, and how the 21-day period could be extended in special circumstances.
	As Lord Chancellor, I am responsible for upholding and defending the independence and integrity of the judiciary, which is essential to the functioning of a free and democratic society. Our system of appointing judges must be, as I believe it is, wholly devoid of party politics; it must be transparent, accountable and capable of inspiring public confidence. Under the Constitutional Reform Act 2005, with the establishment of the Lord Chief Justice, not myself, as head of the judiciary, we have already made significant reforms to the way in which judges are appointed in England and Wales. The most fundamental was the creation of an independent Judicial Appointments Commission. The consultation paper published today outlines other possible options for additional reform, on which the Government would welcome views.
	The final consultation document published today concerns protest in Parliament square. The framework in the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act 2005 in respect of such protests raised concerns from campaigners and other citizens and, separately, from Members of the House. The purpose of the consultation is to listen to those concerns and review the provisions, to see whether there is a better way to both uphold the right to protest and manage individual protest appropriately.
	Holding the Government to account for the way in which they spend public money is one of the most important functions of the House. I and my colleagues pay tribute to the work of the Public Accounts Committee and the National Audit Office in supporting the House in that task. The House will be pleased to know that following a joint request to my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister from my right hon. Friend the Member for Swansea, West (Mr. Williams), the Father of the House, and the Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee, the hon. Member for Gainsborough (Mr. Leigh), space will be made available in the forthcoming constitutional reform Bill for any agreed changes to the governance of the National Audit Office emerging from the review that they have announced.
	It is right to consider the circumstances in which we open up more information for debate before the House. Even in the most sensitive sphere—national security—where everyone agrees that some safeguards have to be in place to respect confidentiality, we should always consider where we can do more, so starting next month, the Government will publish annually, for parliamentary debate and public scrutiny, our national security strategy setting out for the British people the threats we face and the objectives we pursue. Additionally, new rules will govern a more open approach to the working of the Intelligence and Security Committee. My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister has agreed with the Chair of the ISC that Parliament should have a clear role in the appointment of members to the Committee. More details about the new rules and that role will be announced in due course.
	In keeping with the Government's commitment to ensure that the public can access the information they need, my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister will make a speech later today announcing that we will not tighten the charging arrangements for freedom of information requests. A consultation on whether to extend the Freedom of Information Act to a range of organisations that perform public functions, although theoretically some of them may legally be in the private sector, and a review of the 30-year rule will be established.
	These days, huge amounts of personal data are held by the public and private sector. The scale of those holdings has moved on significantly since the passage of the Data Protection Act 1998. My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister and I have therefore asked the Information Commissioner, Richard Thomas, and Professor Mark Walport, the director of the Wellcome Trust, to review the way in which we share and protect personal information in the public and private sector.
	The freedom of the media to investigate and report is a key issue in the use of information. We consulted last year on restricting media access to the coroners' courts. In the light of the responses to that consultation, I can now confirm that we will not be proceeding with any proposals to limit such access.
	Proposals to ban media payments to criminals have been under consideration for some time. None of us wants to see criminals profiting from publishing books about their crimes. While ensuring that the freedom of the press to investigate and report is maintained, we will bring forward proposals to make sure that criminals cannot benefit in that way.
	As provisions in the Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill make clear, we are also concerned about the misuse of personal data. However, the new rules proposed in the Bill have raised concerns that they might impede legitimate investigative journalism, so the Information Commissioner, in consultation with the Press Complaints Commission, will produce clear guidance to ensure that rights to investigate are not impeded.
	There is often a lack of clarity in the balance between an individual's freedom and the role of the state. My right hon. Friend the Home Secretary has been examining this issue in relation to existing police powers of entry to consider whether there should be a single readily understandable code. My right hon. Friend will widen the scope of the review to include all powers of entry available to other public authorities. She will also lead a consultative review to consider whether improved guidance is needed for police officers in the exercise of section 44 of the Terrorism Act 2000—stop-and-search powers—to ensure that trust is preserved in the use of the powers.
	For the sake of completeness, may I tell the House that in respect of reform of the House of Lords, discussions are proceeding inside the all-party talks? We are arranging for two meetings of the working group before Christmas.
	These consultation documents and the other measures are all in part concerned with the right to freedom of expression and its facilitation. The right is specifically protected by the Human Rights Act 1998, but it has existed in the UK for a very long time. Because of its fundamental importance in our democracy, I shall be considering how, as all future legislation is developed, it can be carefully audited for any explicit or unforeseen restrictions that that might unnecessarily place on that freedom of expression.
	I hope and believe that the House will agree that the matters that I have raised go to the heart of exactly where power should lie in our country and how it should be exercised. We now look forward to hearing the views of both parliamentarians and citizens on the proposals. I commend the statement to the House.

Nick Herbert: I thank the Lord Chancellor for giving me a brief early sight of his statement and for the delivery of the documents to my office this morning. I congratulate him on pulling rank over his right hon. and learned Friend the deputy leader of the Labour party and the Leader of the House by making his statement ahead of the business statement.
	The Lord Chancellor says that this is about changing how Britain is governed, and strengthening Parliament. Will he confirm that the Prime Minister will be making a speech shortly on the Human Rights Act outside the House, as has been widely reported in the press this morning, not least on the front page of  The Guardian? The press has clearly been briefed. Will the Lord Chancellor tell the House how, when the Prime Minister makes such an important speech outside the House and prevents us from being able to debate it, that constitutes the strengthening of Parliament?
	In our Opposition day debate on 15 May, we called for the strengthening of parliamentary approval of international treaties. Our democracy taskforce, chaired by my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Rushcliffe (Mr. Clarke), proposed that international treaties be exempt from the royal prerogative, and be required to be laid before Parliament, together with an explanatory document. Why do the Government believe that statutory change is necessary, when a resolution of the House of Commons would be adequate? The consultation document says that proposals on parliamentary approval would relate to new international treaties, but what about existing ones? The House will have a chance to vote on the EU constitutional treaty, signed by the Prime Minister in Lisbon last week, but none the less it will not be put to a vote of the people. Is that the way to rebuild the public's trust?
	Given the frequency of deployments and the controversy that that has created, there is growing consensus in this country that the decision to go to war requires democratic legitimacy. We have already said that parliamentary assent, for example through a resolution of the House of Commons, should be required to commit troops to war, international armed conflict or peacekeeping activity. We favour that being done through the development of a parliamentary convention. The consultation paper proposes that, apart from informing the House, there be no requirement for any further parliamentary procedure, but if the Government really want to strengthen Parliament, should not the House be able to have a decisive say if the Government make a wrong call? Of course there are serious issues relating to the potential for a negative vote when troops are already in the field, but there should be no blank cheque. In matters as critical as a major deployment in an emergency, why should there not be an opportunity for retrospective approval, not just an obligation for the Prime Minister to inform Parliament?
	It is right that the House should vote before troops are committed to military action overseas, but we had a vote when the war in Iraq was declared, and the House was not given a full and accurate account of the position. Does the Lord Chancellor not appreciate that what has caused a haemorrhaging of public trust in Government is not the failure to give Parliament a vote—there was a vote—but the fact that the Government for whom he was Foreign Secretary misled the public on the issue?
	We welcome moves to strengthen the Intelligence and Security Committee—but will the Lord Chancellor confirm that appointments to the Committee will not be in the gift of the Government Whips?
	We welcome the measures to allow protests around Parliament. Indeed, when the reprehensible legislation on the subject was passed, I said that it was more appropriate to Tiananmen square than to Parliament square.  [Interruption.] Will the Lord Chancellor explain exactly how such a flagrant attack on freedom of expression was not found to be incompatible with the Human Rights Act 1998? Was that not an example of the way in which the Act interferes with our ability to deal with terrorists and serious criminals, but fails to protect essential civil liberties?  [Interruption.]

Mr. Speaker: Order. I must call on the Front Benchers. It is unfair; the hon. Gentleman is asking questions. I asked for temperate language yesterday. I also asked for silence, and that is what I am looking for.

Nick Herbert: It is unfortunate that the Government find themselves trying to ensure greater independence in the appointment of judges, as only recently they have done far more to threaten the independence of the judiciary by forcing judges, without prior consultation and still without their agreement, into a Department where their budget is imperilled by the prisons crisis. Will the Lord Chancellor tell the House when he will be able to make a statement on negotiations with the judiciary to protect their independence in the new Ministry of Justice? We welcome measures to limit political involvement in judicial appointments. Does the Secretary of State for Justice now accept that ensuring judicial independence is far more important than gestures such as moving the judiciary to a different building on the other side of Parliament square? The Government now admit that that will cost more than £100 million to set up, and £12.3 million a year to run, although the current arrangements cost virtually nothing.
	Independence is not the only principle that guides judicial appointments. It is quite right that judges should have to be competent, diligent and people of the utmost integrity. Above all, as the consultation paper says:
	"Linked to independence is the principle that judges should be appointed on merit."
	How does the Lord Chancellor reconcile that principle with the commitment to ensuring that judges are drawn from diverse communities? Can he rule out any suggestion of any kind of quotas or positive discrimination in judicial appointments?
	All three of the consultative documents that the Government have published today are welcome, and we will engage fully in debate on them. "The Governance of Britain" Green Paper says that the Government want to forge a new relationship between Government and citizen, but does the Lord Chancellor not understand that there will be no such new relationship until trust is rebuilt? Talking about strengthening Parliament will count for nothing if Parliament is undermined, as it was when the Prime Minister cynically made his announcement of troop withdrawals to the press.
	Talking about giving people more power will count for nothing if the Government put party interests ahead of voters' interests, as the Electoral Commission found that they did—

Mr. Speaker: Order. I called on Government Ministers to limit their statements to 10 minutes. That happened in this case, and I do not expect an Opposition spokesperson to go over the limit. The hon. Gentleman has used up his time, and I must stop him, because I have Back Benchers to call. That is important to me.

Jack Straw: Let me try to deal briefly with those points. I regret the first point that the hon. Gentleman made about the order of the statements today. When I was Leader of the House, and in the case of every predecessor, there were a number of occasions when it was for the convenience of the House and colleagues that I, as Leader of the House, made my statement after a ministerial statement. I am grateful to my right hon. and learned Friend the Leader of the House on this occasion.
	My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister is indeed making an important speech. My statement was intended to ensure that in advance of that speech, the House was informed of all substantive developments that he will speak about.
	The fact that we are proposing a British Bill of Rights and responsibilities and developing such a Bill has been made very clear in the House on a number of occasions. When the consultative document, which I am currently working on, is ready to publish, it will be published first to the House.
	The hon. Gentleman made some extraordinarily muddled comments about the ratification of treaties, and about war powers. I always do my best to ensure that Opposition spokespeople have documents like the ones under discussion as soon as possible. That I tried to do this morning. As for the European treaty, the Ponsonby rule does not apply to that. Why? Because there is a far better procedure in respect of all EU treaties. They are the subject of line-by-line examination by a separate Bill.
	On war powers, I do not know what the hon. Gentleman was going on about when he talked about retrospective approval. There are paragraphs in the document, as we have made clear, about where retrospective approval should apply, and how we could have retrospective approval without undermining the armed forces.
	The hon. Gentleman also asked whether we should prevent recommendations for membership of the Intelligence and Security Committee from being influenced by the Government Whips. That is well above his pay grade and mine. If he is proposing that we get to a situation in which the Government Whips exert no influence whatever on the membership of Committees, I look forward to that time arriving—but I am not sure that that will be while he or I are in the House.
	On protests about Parliament, I hope that, on reflection, the hon. Gentleman will recognise that references to Tiananmen square are completely misplaced. I heard the hon. Member for South Staffordshire (Sir Patrick Cormack) saying from a sedentary position, but not sotto voce, that what the hon. Gentleman said about that was rubbish. Provided that that is parliamentary, Mr. Speaker, I agree with it. I am making a serious point to the hon. Gentleman. People died in Tiananmen square.  [Interruption.] His language was very intemperate indeed.
	On the judiciary, again the hon. Gentleman was profoundly muddled. Nothing has been imperilled by the creation of the Ministry of Justice. The protection of the judiciary remains. I have made it clear that I have no intention of undermining its budget. The case for a supreme court has been widely supported across the country.
	The hon. Gentleman's last point was extraordinary, suggesting that if we sought a more diverse judiciary, somehow it would be less well qualified. I hope that that is not the official position of the Opposition. The House has been strengthened by the introduction of more women and more black and Asian Members, and it will be more strengthened still by more women and black and Asian Members. Exactly the same applies to the judiciary.

Several hon. Members: rose —

Mr. Speaker: Order. I am sorry to trouble the Secretary of State, but his Department has put out copies of the statement that are not complete. There are odd pages missing. Can that be rectified as soon as possible?

Jack Straw: May I apologise for that? and I will ensure that it is rectified as soon as possible. I must add that in one passage in the middle of the statement, I busked.

Alan Whitehead: I very much welcome the statement by my right hon. Friend and the documents that accompany it. One of those relates to changes in royal prerogative. Is it my right hon. Friend's intention to continue to review the question of the royal prerogative, particularly how Parliament uses it, or does he consider that the documents that we have this morning constitute that review?

Jack Straw: The documents are part of the review of the royal prerogative. We have been much informed by the report of the Public Administration Committee of about three years ago, and we continue to examine other aspects of the royal prerogative.
	May I also say that in response to the hon. Member for Arundel and South Downs, (Nick Herbert) I got one point wrong? The EU reform treaty will be subject to the Ponsonby rule, but in addition, it will be subject to detailed parliamentary scrutiny.

David Heath: I, too, welcome the statement, and I would have welcomed early sight of the papers accompanying it. In his announcement today, the Lord Chancellor has given the strong impression that he is running to catch up with the statements of the Prime Minister outside the House. Nevertheless, I welcome many of the proposals in the statement.
	The changes to the royal prerogative on war-making powers are long overdue. It is extremely pleasing to hear the support from the Government Benches and from the Conservatives for something that they flatly rejected when it was proposed by the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Ladywood (Clare Short) not long ago. Even with the provisos that were already in that Bill about morale, operational flexibility and legal liability, it seemed impossible for those on either Front Bench to support even the principle at that stage, so the conversion is welcome.
	With reference to the royal prerogative on treaties, I invite the Lord Chancellor to provide a further gloss on what he said about European Union treaties. Where no change in domestic law is required by the treaty, it does not receive line-by-line scrutiny in the House. Some of us believe that any treaty should be subject to the oversight of the House.
	On the independence of the judiciary, I welcome the discussion paper on separation of powers—almost, as it would seem, as an academic subject. The large number of examples from other jurisdictions have sparing relevance to our system, but if we can further cement the independence of the judiciary, that is extremely important. What new thinking is apparent on the Government's part since the last time we visited the issue? After all, we have only just put in place new provisions to strengthen the role of the Lord Chief Justice.
	On the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act 2005, I note what the Lord Chancellor says about concerns among campaigners and other citizens, and we need to listen to those concerns. May I suggest an innovation to him: that this House actually listens to Members when they raise concerns in the context of the Bill? We fought every inch of the way on the provisions, because we knew exactly what the consequences would be. We would have welcomed the support of those on the Conservative Front Benches in both Houses all the way in arguing against those provisions, but unfortunately we did not receive it. We would apparently have received the support of the hon. Member for Arundel and South Downs (Nick Herbert) if he had been in the House at the time. His observations, presumably made in his bathroom at home, are extremely welcome in that respect. This legislation is working to suppress the right of free speech and demonstration, and if one wants illustration of that fact, one has only to look at the case of Maya Stevens or the march that took place only the other day with on-off permission from the Metropolitan Police Commissioner and the threat even to hon. Members of this House that they would not be able—

Mr. Speaker: Order. I thought that I left the stopwatch when I left Rolls-Royce, but I am on a stopwatch now. I must stop the hon. Gentleman, as he is over his time, and be fair to everyone concerned.

Jack Straw: Let me just say in respect of the points raised by the hon. Gentleman that the EU treaty will be the subject of both the Ponsonby rule and line-by-line examination, because it does affect our domestic law. The European Communities Act 1972 requires that we examine such Acts in detail.
	On the independence of the judiciary, I hope that the House will find international comparisons very interesting. When the document was originally drafted, it was short on discussion of the separation of powers, and it is important that we can put our system in the context of other comparable countries.
	On protests around Parliament square, I understand the controversy and I hope that we can reach a better consensus than we have done before, but I say to the hon. Gentleman that it is not the case that the legislation has been working to "suppress protests". Notwithstanding that legislation, it is a fact to which I can bear testament that, compared with the time when I was organising quite a number of demonstrations in and around London as president of the National Union of Students, there is far greater freedom in practice to demonstrate around Parliament square while Parliament is sitting—and we still had quite a good time protesting.
	On the last point about new thinking in respect of judicial appointments, I think that most of the arrangements set out in the 2005 Act will stand the test of time, but some may need changing.

Gisela Stuart: I welcome the announcement that we will not restrict media access to coroners' courts, which will certainly be welcomed by Birmingham coroner's court, which has been arguing for that.
	Without having had the benefit of reading the specific contents of the document, I wonder whether the Lord Chancellor can tell me whether he is also considering affirmation hearings on appointments, such as those of high commissioners and ambassadors, carried out by Select Committees, to strengthen accountability to Parliament.

Jack Straw: We do not make specific proposals on that issue in these documents. There are proposals, which I discussed with the Liaison Committee not so long ago, for some pre-confirmation hearings in respect of a positions ombudsman, for example. So far there have been no proposals for pre-confirmation hearings in respect of ambassadors and high commissioners.

Alan Beith: I welcome the Government's acceptance of the Constitutional Affairs Committee's view that freedom of information should not be restricted by new charges and that confirmation hearings for judges would be a bad idea, but why does the consultation paper not take account of the wide extent to which judges, from the Lord Chief Justice down to local magistrates, now appear before the Committee and give valuable evidence? Why was it more urgent to revisit a judicial appointments system that has just been set up than to look at issues such as the post-devolution governance of England, on which the Committee will be taking hearings in the near future?

Jack Straw: We look forward to hearing from the right hon. Gentleman's Select Committee; I think that he would have been complaining if we had pre-empted its sage consideration. As I discussed with his Committee, there are changes, albeit second-order changes, that need to be made in the appointment of the judiciary, not least to slim down the current statutory requirement on me for various decisions which neither I nor the Lord Chief Justice think are necessary.

Patrick Cormack: Does the Lord Chancellor agree that there is all the difference in the world between orderly, peaceful protest in Parliament square, which all of us should uphold, and having a permanent, squalid encampment in Parliament square?

Jack Straw: I agree with the hon. Gentleman that there is indeed a difference. Whether the provisions will continue to permit, one way or another, such encampments remains to be decided.

Fiona Mactaggart: I welcome the Secretary of State's remarks about a more widely drawn judiciary, but I would like to focus my question on the proposals that he makes in relation to the intelligence and security strategy and the Intelligence and Security Committee. How can we ensure that Parliament focuses more carefully on these issues than it has to date? He is aware, as I am, that the debates are often poorly attended. Has he proposals to ensure better parliamentary scrutiny of these issues, on top of what we heard about in his brief statement?

Jack Straw: My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister has made proposals for change, particularly to give, as it were, a greater impression of legitimacy to the people who serve on these committees. In my experience of appearing before the Intelligence and Security Committee over a nine-year period, it is in fact a very independent body of parliamentarians. We are ensuring that more information is made available, but ultimately it is for Members of this House to make better use, if I may say so, of the opportunities that are available, including a full day's debate each year, in respect of the ISC's work.

Edward Leigh: Will the Secretary of State confirm that any proposed changes to the governance of the National Audit Office will be proceeded with on a cross-party basis, so that we can ensure the integrity and absolute independence of the Comptroller and Auditor General?
	On the day when Sir John Bourn has announced his retirement from his post, may I thank him for 20 years' unstinting support of the Public Accounts Committee, which I think has ensured that we now have more effective oversight of public moneys than ever before in our history?

Jack Straw: I want to endorse the hon. Gentleman's last remarks. The answer to his first question is yes.

Julie Morgan: I welcome my right hon. Friend's statement, and particularly the announcements about freedom of information. I also welcome the fact that there will be a review about protests in Parliament square, because I think that it is important that the Government recognise that there has been an issue about them. Does he agree that how the consultation is carried out is very important? If we are to change the nature of the relationship between the citizen and Parliament, and between Parliament and the Government, is it not important that the citizen is involved in the consultation right from the beginning? Does he have any new ideas about how we can reach out to citizens to get them involved in this process?

Jack Straw: I entirely agree with my hon. Friend about the importance of involving people better in the decisions. There are proposals that my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister announced on 3 July, which we are developing and some of which we have already used, for formal arrangements. I know that they are the subject of some mockery by the Opposition, but they can work and have done so, as I have personally seen in relation to citizens juries, for example, which really can make a difference.
	I also say to my hon. Friend that each of us has our own responsibility to talk to our constituents about these matters and to seek their views. I do that on a regular basis, not least in my open air meetings in the centre of Blackburn, where I did so last Saturday and two weeks before. I am happy to give Members on both sides of the House advance notice of when I will be there, and to entertain them with a cup of coffee after they have listened to me. They can have the same rights as citizens of Blackburn to put me to proof on any issue that they wish. I find that there is real appetite, surprisingly enough, for discussing issues about how our democracy should work better, not least among the young. The development of youth parliamentarians and youth MPs in every constituency has been very encouraging indeed.

Mark Lazarowicz: My right hon. Friend made brief mention of the progress of the discussions on the reform of the House of Lords. Will he give more detail on how they are going and an indication of when he expects them to conclude? So that we do not lose the impetus of the overwhelming vote in this House for elections to the House of Lords, will he ensure that if we do not get agreement in the all-party discussions, the matter will be brought back to the House early so that we can move things further forward?

Jack Straw: I made a detailed report to the House in an oral statement just before the summer recess. The all-party talks are taking place against the background and in the context of the clear decisions, made on an all-party basis in this House in early March, in favour of an 80 per cent. elected or 100 per cent. elected House of Lords and against all other options. That is the clear decision of this House. In that context, and given that all three parties support a wholly or mainly elected House of Lords, I hope that we can reach agreement on the many issues that make up the dossier.

Andrew MacKay: May I put it to the Lord Chancellor that although his occasional busking at the Dispatch Box is attractive, constant noise from protesters in Parliament square is not? I underline what my hon. Friend the Member for South Staffordshire (Sir Patrick Cormack) said: there can surely be a happy compromise between the freedom to demonstrate in Parliament square—that is essential—and not having a permanent protest site. I ask the Lord Chancellor to stress to the Home Secretary that the consultation period should be relatively brief and that legislation should be brought forward as quickly as possible. I would strongly support appropriate legislation.

Jack Straw: I should have said that the consultation period on all the documents ends on 17 January, so it is pretty brief. I entirely understand the right hon. Gentleman's concern. My rooms have always faced Parliament square, and I find it difficult to conduct some meetings. I applaud the right to protest; as the House knows, I have used it myself on many occasions.

John Bercow: That was 40 years ago.

Jack Straw: How does the hon. Gentleman know that? I shall give him my biography later. I have protested rather more recently than that; we regularly marched against the terrible Conservative Government. I have not marched against this Government, however.
	I understand the right hon. Gentleman's point and hope that my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary does too.

Denis MacShane: Are we actually at war in Iraq? The Lord Chancellor says that he wants to look at extending the Freedom of Information Act 2000 to a range of organisations that perform public functions. No greater public function is performed than that by the media. Does he think that the 2000 Act should be extended generally to the media, so that we can get an answer to the famous question: quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

Jack Straw: Indeed; I once wrote a long essay on that, but it was in English.
	The document makes it clear that the last time that we formally declared war was in 1942, although we have been involved in many armed conflicts since the second world war: 16,000 British service personnel have lost their lives since. The document deals with the issues about the definitions. Plainly, the rights of this House to make decisions on armed conflict go beyond any formal declaration of war.

Adam Price: Given the Government's keenness to involve the citizen in the wider debate, does he see merit in the proposal to build on the experience of citizens juries and create a citizens convention supported by Members on both sides of the House? Given the parallel debate on the constitutional future of Scotland and Wales, launched by the respective First Ministers, will the Government involve the devolved Administrations in the wider debate about the future governance of Britain?

Jack Straw: The answer to the second question is yes. I gave advance information about the contents of the document "The Governance of Britain", although not of these documents, to the First Ministers and colleagues in Northern Ireland on 3 July. We are actively seeking the views of the devolved Administrations—the Scottish Parliament, the Welsh Assembly and the Northern Ireland Assembly. There is no question about that.
	Earlier this week, I spelt out to the House of Lords Constitution Committee why we are not in favour of a citizens convention to determine such matters. There is no direct parallel with the convention that did important work in Scotland and the parallel consultations in Wales. The Scottish convention was necessary because at the time there was no Scottish Parliament. There had to be some legitimated but necessarily informal body to do the job that would otherwise be done by the Parliament; the situation was similar in respect of the arrangements for Wales.
	We have a people's convention; it is called the British House of Commons. It is vital that any key decisions on our constitutional arrangements be made here. I do not believe that we should subcontract decisions to a parallel Parliament. However, the decisions that in the end we have a responsibility to make should be far better informed by vigorous debate and pressure from outside—from British citizens.

William Cash: The Lord Chancellor makes a great deal of democracy. Does he agree that given the reform treaty— [Interruption.] Oh yes, indeed. Given the reform treaty or any other that creates substantial constitutional change, does the Lord Chancellor agree that another convention should be applied? Not only should such a treaty go through Parliament—where, of course, it will be rammed through by the Whips—but it should be subject to a referendum of the people as a whole, for we hold our position on trust from them.

Jack Straw: I have a bet at Ladbrokes, with extremely generous odds, on whether at any stage in the next 10 years the hon. Gentleman will ask any question of the Treasury Bench that does not mention the word "Europe". Sadly, despite the generous odds, I have still not collected any winnings, because I have never heard him ask any question whatever that does not get on to the issue of Europe. Public conveniences in Staffordshire would— [Interruption.] The answer to the question— [Interruption.] Well, I have given the hon. Gentleman so many answers to the question and I never satisfy him; it is very sad. The hon. Gentleman knows the answer; I do not know why he asked the damn question. I apologise; I withdraw that intemperate word.

Brian Binley: Do you know the answer?

Jack Straw: Yes, I do. It is that we are the party that pioneered the use of referendums in particular circumstances. We do not believe that that one is appropriate for the EU reform treaty. The only thing that would satisfy the hon. Member for Stone (Mr. Cash) is a decision made by this House; if he got his party on board and it won an election on such a manifesto, it could happen. I am talking about a decision to repeal the European Communities Act 1972. This House and the other place made the decision to join the European Union; this House and the other place, with or without a referendum—I suggest that one would be useful and desirable in such circumstances—could make a decision to withdraw from the European Union. That is the hon. Gentleman's policy, not that of those on the Conservative Front Bench. That is his problem.

Tony Baldry: Does the Lord Chancellor recognise that many hon. Members on both sides of the House would not have voted for the war on Iraq if they had known then what we know now? As we consider our war-making powers between now and the end of the consultation period in January, should the House not have an opportunity to debate how we can avoid collectively misdirecting ourselves again in that way, and how the House can be better informed about such decisions before we again erroneously commit people to war?

Jack Straw: We will have to have another occasion to debate the justification for military action in respect of Iraq on 18 March 2003. I simply say to the hon. Gentleman, who voted for it, I think—I certainly did; if he did not, I apologise—that the House as a whole voted for it by a very large majority.
	I have thought about this a very great deal. As far as I am concerned, on the basis of the information that was then available, which was the only information that could have been available at the time, the decision to take military action was justified. I am happy to discuss that in another place. Whatever criticism is made of the Government and their decision, every effort was made to involve this House, not on one occasion but on four, through substantive motions. I believe that we have to learn lessons from what happened, one of which is how much more detail should be available about both the intelligence and the defence case for any military action. Also the House has to come to a view about whether, and in what circumstances, it needs formal written legal advice, and if so from whom, if there is any question of a challenge to the legality of any proposition for military action.

Julian Lewis: Does the Lord Chancellor accept that when we exercise our right to free speech, whether in this Chamber or in public places such as Parliament square, that does not confer an unlimited right to shout and bawl one's message using amplification equipment in a deliberate attempt to disturb other people? Is he aware that when that happens, in breach of the over-generous permission already given to the protesters by Westminster council, there is nothing the police can do about it other than retrospectively take the perpetrators to court? That is because the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act 2005 removed the power of the police to cross the road, take the equipment away and stop the people from breaking the rules. Will he address that loophole?

Jack Straw: My right hon. Friend the Home Secretary will indeed address that issue. If I may say so, the hon. Gentleman makes a rather important and wider point. I commend a lecture that I am giving at the university of Cambridge later on today.

Julian Lewis: Send me an advance copy!

Jack Straw: I think that the hon. Gentleman may have discovered that on his desk there is a little box called a computer; if it is working, I will send him an e-mail.

Julian Lewis: Excellent.

Jack Straw: The point that I make in my speech, which is by no means original, is that rights have to go with obligations, and privileges with duties, and that we need to do more to ensure that that side of the equation is better understood.

Brian Binley: I thank the Lord Chancellor for his statement. I particularly welcome his comment that his motivation for much of his activity as a student was enjoyment—I always thought so, as did many others, and I am grateful for his honesty.
	When I wrote to the Home Secretary about Parliament square and the insulting behaviour thrown at Members as they leave this place, particularly at the then Prime Minister, I was told that local government powers stood very much in the way of taking further action. The Lord Chancellor will obviously take that into account. Will he talk to local government people to ensure that they do not get in the way of the actions that he wants to take on this occasion?

Jack Straw: I understand and am grateful for the hon. Gentleman's comments, which my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary, whose happy task it is to conduct this review, will certainly bear in mind. Having been Home Secretary when we had the Stop the City protests, which were very violent and disruptive—on one occasion people dug up the whole of Parliament square—I discovered that the legal ownership of that piece of land is a nightmare, as different bits of it belong to different owners with different rights in respect of it. If I might make my own suggestion to my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary, one of the things that we have to ensure is that any new legal framework in respect of demonstrations there takes proper account of those legal ownership issues.

Peter Bone: The Lord Chancellor said that the Prime Minister is making a statement elsewhere about the freedom of information request, and that the charges will not be tightened. If it is not a secret, could the Lord Chancellor tell us what were the pros and cons of that decision?

Jack Straw: My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister is indeed making a speech elsewhere shortly. One reason why I made this statement in advance of his speech is his concern, and mine, that this House should be the first to know of the substance of what he says—not the whole speech, as that would run over the allocations that we have agreed with Mr. Speaker.
	On freedom of information fees, there was a proposal that the definition of excessive time taken should be extended, and that some relatively minimal fees should be introduced in respect of data protection. My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister will announce, as a supplement to the announcement that I have made in this House, that we are not intending to proceed with those restrictions, nor with the fee.

Business of the House

Harriet Harman: With permission, I should like to make a statement about the business for next week. It will include:
	Monday 29 October—If necessary consideration of Lords amendments, followed by consideration of Lords amendments to the UK Borders Bill, followed by a debate on Burma on a motion for the Adjournment of the House, followed, if necessary, by consideration of Lords amendments.
	Tuesday 30 October—If necessary, consideration of Lords amendments. The House will be prorogued when Royal Assent to all Acts has been signified.
	Colleagues will wish to be aware that business may go beyond the moment of interruption on both days.
	I am sure that Members understood all that, but I am aware that the formal way in which business statements are made can be incomprehensible. I hope that the Clerks will not start tearing the hair out of their wigs, but I have already asked the Procedure Committee to consider looking at how we can use plain English, and I hope that in future my statements will be more in humanspeak and less in gobbledegook.
	On oral questions, following representations from the right hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs. May) and the hon. Member for North Southwark and Bermondsey (Simon Hughes), I have reflected on their comments and confirm to the House that, following agreement through the usual channels, the Government will bring forward a revised questions rota which is intended to result in better accountability for the larger Departments and, subject to the views of the House today, even greater topicality.

Theresa May: I welcome the fact that the Leader of the House has reflected on the issue of the question cycle. It is important that Departments such as the Ministry of Justice are able to have longer than the half hour that is in the current cycle. I thank her for giving us the future business, such as it is at this stage of the Session.
	Last week, the Leader of the House told the House that the Government were
	"not committed to an equalities Bill for the Queen's Speech this November".—[ Official Report, 18 October 2007; Vol. 464, c. 965.]
	Yet last month she told the media:
	"We have promised a new equalities Bill next year".
	Will she make a statement on what exactly is happening with the equalities Bill?
	This morning, the Government announced in a written statement that motorway hard shoulders will be used to curb congestion. The Transport Secretary has not come to the House to take questions from hon. Members. Can the Leader of the House confirm that that decision hides cuts to the Government's motorway widening programme; and when will the Transport Secretary come to the House to explain it?
	Yesterday, speaking about the changes to capital gains tax, the Minister for Trade Promotion and Investment, Lord Jones of Birmingham, said that
	"medium sized businesses think it is a terrible thing".
	Can we have a debate, in Government time, so that we may decide who is right about capital gains tax—the Chancellor or the Minister?
	The Prime Minister said:
	"As far as the statement on the constitution is concerned I'm not going to pre-announce what we're going to say to the House of Commons."
	However, we have just had a statement from the Secretary of State for Justice, the details of which were reported by  The Guardian this morning. It is now clear that with this Government no spin has become the new spin. Who can trust the Prime Minister on the constitution? He abused his constitutional position by planning and then bottling a general election for party political reasons. Can we have a full debate, in Government time, on the Prime Minister's abuse of the constitution?
	Cancelling a general election for party political purposes is cynical; making a mess of the Scottish elections for partisan reasons is unforgivable. The Gould report says that
	"party self-interest was evident in ministerial decision making".
	Will the Secretary of State for International Development come to the House to apologise and make a personal statement? One experienced parliamentarian has said that
	"we have to approach change in electoral administration and systems on a non-party basis."
	That was the Leader of the House herself. Will she arrange a debate, in Government time, on the lessons of the Gould report?
	Democracy and electoral processes will undoubtedly be raised in next week's important debate on Burma. Who will be speaking for the Government in that debate—the Foreign Secretary or the International Development Secretary?
	The British population will increase to over 70 million by 2031, and at least 70 per cent. of that increase will be down to immigration. What is the Government's big idea on immigration? They borrow British National party slogans such as "British jobs for British workers"—even though everyone knows that that would be illegal. Can we have a debate, in Government time, on Labour's failed immigration policy?
	The issues tell a bigger story. We have a Prime Minister with no long-term vision, just short-term tactics, and no serious answers, just spin. He spent a lifetime working to get to No. 10, but now he has got there, he has no idea what to do.

Harriet Harman: The first point that the right hon. Lady asked me about concerned the equality Bill. I very much welcome her new interest in equality, particularly on the question of equal pay. However, I remember that she voted against what was, in itself, the biggest contribution to narrowing the pay gap between women and men: the minimum wage. Nevertheless, I welcome her commitment to equality.
	As far as the Bill is concerned, the original plan was to issue a consultation and following that to publish a draft Bill this spring for inclusion in the Queen's Speech of November 2008. Following the response to the consultation, a number of proposals have been made that we think are worthy of consideration in order to improve the Bill. As I told the right hon. Lady previously, we want to keep our slot for a new equality Bill, fit for the 21st century, in 2008. It might not be possible to publish the whole Bill in draft, but we would seek to publish some draft clauses. I attended a reception at the TUC in September—the House was not sitting at the time—where I gave that answer to a question about our response to the consultation on the equality Bill. If the House had been sitting, I would have taken the opportunity to come to the House to make that point.
	The right hon. Lady asked about motorway hard shoulders. There was a written ministerial statement on that, and I am not aware of any request for an urgent question from hon. Members, but there will be Transport questions in the future— [ Interruption. ] I apologise; an urgent question was requested, but not accepted.
	The right hon. Lady asked about capital gains tax. There is an opportunity during consideration of the Queen's Speech for the Opposition to choose the subjects for whole-day debates. I have no doubt that the economy will be one of them, and hon. Members can revisit those issues.
	The right hon. Lady accused the Secretary of State for Justice and the Prime Minister of briefing the newspapers before the statement given by the Secretary of State. The information that was new in the Secretary of State's statement was first announced in this House, but a lot of the information discussed in the papers this morning was in the Green Paper, "The Governance of Britain", which had already been given to the House by the Prime Minister in July. That information was already in the public domain. Although we can discuss things already in the public domain in the newspapers, if Ministers have new information, I regard it as important that they bring it in a statement to this House. As I understand it, that is what the Secretary of State for Justice did today.
	The right hon. Lady raised the question of the Scottish elections. It is deeply regrettable that 150,000 or so people did not have their vote counted in those elections. The point is that everyone should have a vote and we have always wanted to increase the turnout from its diminishing level. One of the reasons why proportional systems, which operate in the European elections, and in London, Wales and Scotland, were introduced was the belief that it might increase turnout, based on the argument that every vote counted for more. As we have seen, the reality is that it makes the system more complex.
	I remind the House that in the 2004 London elections, 220,000 votes were ruled out because we had the European, the Greater London authority and the mayoral elections on the same day. We tried to have a perfectly fair system for each election, but the result was too much complexity. The Electoral Commission is on hand to deal with the matter, and we established that independent commission to assist with election questions when we came into government. However, the question of how the new electoral systems are knitting together is the subject of a review that is being led by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Justice.
	On the question of Burma, I am sure that the House will welcome the fact that a Minister in the Foreign Office has been in talks in the region, in Singapore on Monday, and with Chinese and Indian Ministers in Tonga, so work is going ahead—[Hon. Members: "Who is the Minister?"] I shall get to that in a moment. I know that the matter is very important, and I wanted to report to the House the work of Ministers on the important question of Burma. We hope that it is a sign of progress that Aung San Suu Kyi has been called for talks by the Burmese authorities, and the Foreign Office are still considering who will lead an important debate on the matter on Monday.
	As far as Labour's immigration policy is concerned. I will repeat what I have said before. This country was built on successive waves of immigration. No doubt, many Members would not be in this House if it were not for immigration, and I am sure that they play a very important role in this country. If they want to debate the issues further, they can raise them on the occasion of the Queen's Speech debate.

John Spellar: The Leader of the House will be aware that the Government have for several months had the report of the Senior Salaries Review Body. Can she let the House know when it is likely to be published and when it is likely to be considered by the House?

John Bercow: Don't say shortly.

Harriet Harman: I can say that it will be very shortly. I know that the question of pay and the important support services for Members that enable us to do our job properly are of concern to the House. We will publish the Government's response at the same time as the SSRB report, enabling the House to debate it very shortly thereafter.

Simon Hughes: The Leader of the House's announcement about plain English statements and a new timetable for questions is welcome. I assume that there will be a chance over a year to consider how the latter works. I hope that there is a case for doing the one thing that, despite her best efforts, she has been unable to achieve: ensuring that the Department for International Development has a full slot like the other major Departments. I am sure that that would be popular and welcome and I hope that we can do it as soon as possible.
	May I join the calls that hon. Members of all parties made yesterday and that the right hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs. May) made today for the earliest possible debate about elections in the United Kingdom? The Gould report contained the telling phrase
	"a notable level of party self interest"—

Graham Stuart: By Ministers.

Simon Hughes: Indeed. However, we also have the report that the Leader of the House mentioned, which has been completed in the Ministry of Justice and reviews all the elections in recent years. May I urge giving serious consideration to ending the real mischief, which is holding elections for different levels of government throughout the country on the same day? That means that people do not vote on the issues that are relevant to the various authorities. We are desperately keen to get quick rather than accurate results. There is no public support for counting by machine, when people cannot see what is going on. People prefer counting by individuals, which means that people can see what is happening. Ultimately, somebody has to take responsibility for elections.
	The Leader of the House mentioned justice issues for debate. I ask her to put two items on the agenda as soon as possible. The first is prisons. We now learn that some prisons are dedicated entirely to foreign prisoners, yet in other prisons, there are many people suffering from mental illness who should not be in prison. We must put prison issues on top of the political agenda.
	Secondly, tribunals in this country are now full of people—for example, female local government workers pursuing equal pay cases—but we cannot have group actions, which would resolve many individual issues at the same time.
	I asked the Leader of the House a written question, as I said I would, about the draft legislative programme and the consultation that has taken place on it. I know that she cannot tell us today what changes the consultation has brought about, but, given that the Government published a draft legislative programme for the Queen's Speech and then consulted, are any changes likely as a result of responses to the consultation, or was the consultation simply a presentation exercise—spin rather than substance?

Harriet Harman: We will keep the rota of questions under review after we have changed it.
	The hon. Gentleman mentioned elections in the UK. It is in the interests of all hon. Members to get everybody who is entitled to vote on the electoral register. Currently, 3 million to 4 million people do not get a chance to cast their vote because they are not on the electoral register. It is also in our interests to ensure that all those on the register vote. A high percentage of people voting gives legitimacy to institutions. That should be our only interest in UK elections when we legislate.
	The hon. Gentleman mentioned different levels of elections—European elections, local elections, Scottish or Welsh elections—on the same day. The reason for holding them on the same day is to increase turnout—there is concern about low turnout in some important local elections. There is a balance to be struck. Is it best to hold several elections on the same day, with people perhaps not distinguishing between the responsibility of the different tiers of government, or to have chronically low turnout? We must reflect on those matters.
	The hon. Gentleman spoke about counting by machine. Extensive piloting of machine counting has taken place. Obviously, we must keep all those issues under review. He asked who takes responsibility for the elections. Hon. Members of all parties are responsible for legislation on elections. The Electoral Commission has independent responsibility, and all parties have a responsibility to work together to improve the position.
	The hon. Gentleman asked about accountability and scrutiny of prisons. I agree—I am sure that that applies to all hon. Members—that that is an important issue. One of the improvements that he and the right hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs. May) proposed for our rota of questions is that the Justice Ministry, which is now responsible for prisons, should have an hour's Question Time instead of half an hour, which is clearly inadequate given the importance of prisons as well other Ministry of Justice issues.
	The hon. Gentleman asked about group actions on equal pay. Several organisations—women's organisations and trade unions—raised that in response to our consultation and we are reflecting on the matter.
	The hon. Gentleman asked whether there would be changes in the draft legislative programme as a result of our publishing it in advance. As I acknowledged at the time, publication was very late in the day in the context of the gestation of the Government's legislative programme. The new Prime Minister did not make the decision—

Simon Hughes: I think I know what is coming.

Harriet Harman: Well, just listen. A new Prime Minister took office in June and the decision was then made to publish the draft legislative programme. Hon. Members know that an awful lot of a draft legislative programme that is to be presented to the House in November is pretty finalised, as one would expect.  [Interruption.] It is the Government's legislative programme. Next year, we intend to go beyond simply conducting an exercise in transparency—hon. Members should bear it in mind that the draft legislative programme would be secret until November had we not changed the position in July. We also had a chance to debate it in July. We hope that, next year, we will publish the draft legislative programme earlier so that there is a genuine opportunity for people to influence the outcome and propose Bills that they want. There is a big demand for people to be more engaged in the contents of our draft legislative programme. I therefore hope that the hon. Gentleman will set aside his cynicism for a moment and agree that it is a good idea to be more transparent and have more consultation. We are striving to achieve that.

Gerald Kaufman: Has my right hon. and learned Friend read early-day motion 2175 in my name and those of several other hon. Members?
	 [That this House expresses its disgust at and condemnation of, Mobile Connections of Bordesley Green, Birmingham, which has cheated a constituent of the right hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton out of hundreds of pounds and has failed to answer a series of letters, over a period of months, from the right hon. Member; and calls on potential customers to have nothing to do with this dishonest organisation.]
	It condemns and expresses disgust at the theft by an organisation called Mobile Connections of Bordesley Green, Birmingham of hundreds of pounds from a constituent of mine. Will my right hon. and learned Friend provide time for a debate on the matter? Will she also ask the Secretary of State for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform to draw the matter to the attention of the director general of fair trading?

Harriet Harman: I will certainly do what my right hon. Friend asks on that important issue and draw it to the attention of Ministers in the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform.

John Redwood: May we have an early debate in Government time on the appalling state of the roads and the rip-off of the motorist? Now that taxes on petrol are more than 60p a litre and we are told that we may have to use the hard shoulder because the Government have not provided enough road space, surely the crisis is urgent enough for even this Government to believe that we need a proper debate to explore positive options to get more capacity on our road system.

Harriet Harman: Spending on roads has increased by 62 per cent. since the Government of whom the right hon. Gentleman was part left office and we came in. As I understand it, the use of the hard shoulder is about better use of the road space that we already have.

Ann Coffey: As part of Inside Justice week, a group of children from Adswood primary school in my constituency are visiting a local magistrates court, where they will have the opportunity to participate in a mock trial, question the judge and pass sentence. Does my right hon. and learned Friend agree that that is an excellent way of involving children in understanding the justice system and that it should be open to all children? Will she also make time for a debate on the subject?

Harriet Harman: I will bring that to the attention of my hon. Friends in the Ministry of Justice. I commend the work that is being done in my hon. Friend's Stockport constituency on Inside Justice week. I hope that many of those young people will end up in court again as magistrates.

Nigel Evans: I was always opposed to householders being charged extra for putting rubbish out depending on its weight. However, we understand that the Government junked that idea last night. Ribble Valley council, along with many others that have been rolling out wheelie bins for recycling, were encouraged by the Government to put chips in those bins at an extra cost of thousands of pounds. Will the Leader of the House arrange for a Minister to make an oral statement next week to announce the Government's position and, if the idea has been junked, thereby making the chips possibly the biggest piece of rubbish in the bins, to say what compensation will be made available to local authorities that have put chips in bins?

Harriet Harman: I thought that the Conservative party was the newly greened party and was concerned about waste. I would therefore have expected Conservative Members to join positively in the discussions taking place nationally, locally and among members of the public on how to ensure that we collect waste effectively and generate less of it.

Stephen Ladyman: Is my right hon. and learned Friend aware that Kent county council has decided to spend £600,000 on its own TV channel, while putting up home care charges for older people in order to raise £600,000? There is no greater supporter of devolution to local councils than I, but should we not have a debate, so that we can expose how Tory councils abuse those powers?

Harriet Harman: Heavens above! In the olden days that used to be known as propaganda on the rates. I thank my hon. Friend for raising the issue, which I will bring to the attention of colleagues in government.

Andrew MacKay: Does the Leader of the House not see that we have been shamefully late in having a debate on Burma, which has sent completely the wrong message to the dreadful military Government there? Her saying that the Foreign Secretary might not necessarily lead the forthcoming debate would send an even worse message. Will she therefore rethink her previous answer and assure us that the Foreign Secretary will be present, as the shadow Foreign Secretary will be?

Harriet Harman: I am sorry that the right hon. Gentleman does not welcome the fact that the House is debating Burma in Government time, bearing in mind the terrible events that have taken place there. He will know that the Foreign Secretary has duties that he must carry out in different parts of the world, including at the United Nations. He has responsibilities to the House, too, which he is well aware of, but I assure hon. Members that we will have an important debate, with information coming forth from the Government and an opportunity for all hon. Members to participate.

Ann Cryer: Does my right hon. and learned Friend feel that it might be useful to have a debate on the Forced Marriage (Civil Protection) Act 2007, which, with a great deal of help from her, was finally given Royal Assent at the end of last Session? Given that the measure received all-party support, which I very much appreciate, it is unfortunate that the press gave it hardly any coverage. The very people who could be protected by that measure through injunctions therefore know nothing of it, and it will not be used until we can get some publicity for it.

Harriet Harman: My hon. Friend makes an important point, which I will bring to the attention of my hon. Friends dealing with questions of justice. If people do not know about their rights, they cannot be protected. People do not know that Bills have received Royal Assent. We must do more to bring such important pieces of legislation to the attention of the people whom they are supposed to benefit. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend's role in bringing the legislation forward.

Justine Greening: May we have a statement from the Secretary of State for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform on the aftermath of the postal strike? Postal services in my part of London are still nowhere near back to normal—that is my experience, the experience of my constituents and the experience of my small businesses, too. It is becoming a serious matter when we are not receiving our post. Can we have an urgent statement, so that the issue can be discussed in this place?

Harriet Harman: I understand from my hon. Friend the Deputy Leader of the House, who has just informed me, that the Secretary of State met the Select Committee on Trade and Industry on Monday. We are keen to ensure that the backlog is cleared as soon as possible and that the situation is resolved.

Barry Sheerman: Does my right hon. and learned Friend agree that the BBC is central to our democracy? Will she agree to encourage an early debate on the BBC, in view of what is happening? We all believe that the BBC should live within the licence fee, but the way in which cuts are being made and people are being selected suggests that members of staff who ask uncomfortable questions are being made scapegoats and getting fired, whereas people such as Alan Yentob and other senior managers seem to survive whatever happens. The BBC is central; it is a wonderful institution. At least it cannot be bought by Lord Ashcroft, as he has bought the Conservative party. Can we ensure that we have an early debate on what is happening in the BBC?

Harriet Harman: My hon. Friend is right that the BBC is central and important in our democracy. The issue has not had the importance in the House that it perhaps should have. That is one of the reasons why it has been agreed throughout the House that we should increase the time for Culture, Media and Sport questions to 50 minutes.

Roger Williams: As we enter the season when the Government will be making statements on the financial settlements for many organisations, I understand that there might be a radical reform of the formula to determine police funding, which could particularly affect Welsh police authorities. There is a statutory consultation document out, but the Welsh police authorities have not received copies and have had to ask for it. Will the Leader of the House therefore gently remind her colleagues in the Home Office and the Department for Communities and Local Government that although policing, and police funding in particular, is a reserved matter for Westminster, the Welsh police authorities want to be involved in that consultation? May we also have a pre-settlement statement on the change of the formula, so that hon. Members can be involved, rather than just reacting to the settlement?

Harriet Harman: I will bring the hon. Gentleman's comments to the attention of my ministerial colleagues.

Phyllis Starkey: Loughton parish council in my constituency has been forced to hold a parish poll on the subject of an EU referendum—[Hon. Members: "Hear, hear."]—by just 10 electors, spearheaded by a local Conservative councillor who seems to be strangely close to UKIP. The poll will cost £1,000, which is 10 per cent. of the parish council's budget, which would otherwise be used to improve life for people. Both the parish council and the National Association of Local Councils are extremely concerned about the hijacking of parish councils for party political purposes. Could we look seriously at amending the Local Government Act 1972 with urgency, to prevent parishes throughout the country from seeing their funds diverted to a purpose that is wholly outside their purview?

Harriet Harman: I will certainly ask my hon. Friends to look into that question. Spending by parish councils is supposed to be limited to parish affairs. I remind hon. Members that it is we in this House who will be debating and making a decision on whether to ratify the treaty. It will be for hon. Members, no doubt having consulted their constituents, to bring their views to the House and make them known.

George Young: For some weeks now, we have been expecting to see on the Order Paper the names of members of the Regional Select Committees, trailed by the Government's paper in July. Can we take it from the Modernisation Committee's announcement that it is consulting on this matter that the Government are having second thoughts? Will the Leader of the House confirm that one option would be not to proceed with this misguided proposal?

Harriet Harman: I think that the House will want us to proceed with the proposal to have greater regional accountability— [Interruption.] The Modernisation Committee will discuss how we can increase regional accountability in the House. When it has concluded its deliberations, it will make proposals. We remain committed to the principle of regional accountability and we will widely discuss the precise formulation. I hope that all hon. Members will contribute to the consultation.

Denis MacShane: May we have an early debate on the problem of prostitution, particularly about how we curb demand? There are 25,000 sex slaves operating in Britain, while brothels and massage parlours are growing in importance. It is a huge industry. Young women of only 12, 14, 16— [Interruption.] I see Conservative Members sniggering about this; they should stop it. Young women of those ages are being beaten up and forced to act as sex slaves. It is more a matter of demand than supply, which we cannot do much about. I have a quote from a 12-year-old from the Balkans, who was beaten up:
	"I remember vividly the first time I was with a customer. . . He was in his late sixties and smelt awful. As he crouched over me, his hands groping my body, I felt sick, but there was a guard standing outside the room, so I couldn't escape."
	That is happening in 21st century Britain, and unless we curb demand and make men accept their responsibility for the cruelties they impose on women, it will get a lot worse. We need an urgent debate. Britain must rid itself of this foul and evil trade.

Harriet Harman: I pay tribute to my right hon. Friend's work in this area. This modern-day slavery is a new and evil trade that is emerging in this country, which is one reason why we need to work closely with our European partners. This vile trade is not only going on as my right hon. Friend describes, but is being advertised on the back pages of local newspapers—even local family newspapers—which read, "new girls in every week", "new girls from eastern Europe, from Africa, from south-east Asia" and so forth. That is advertising slavery and I will meet the Newspaper Society next week to discuss how it can play a part in curbing this evil trade.

John Bercow: As it is international brain tumour awareness week and supporters in several countries across the world have covered twice the circumference of the globe in undertaking fundraising sponsored walks on its behalf, may we have a debate in Government time on the Floor of the House as a matter of urgency? No fewer than 16,000 people are diagnosed with brain tumours each year, yet survival rates have not risen in line with those for other cancers and the brain tumour research community benefits from only a tiny proportion of the resources available to Cancer Research UK and the Medical Research Council. Is it not time that we considered how we can do better in the interests of helping those thousands of people who have suffered far too much for far too long with far too little done to help them?

Harriet Harman: I welcome the hon. Gentleman's point, as will hon. Members throughout the House. I am pleased to have the opportunity to congratulate all the organisations that are working together as part of brain tumour awareness week as well as throughout the year. I also pay tribute to the hon. Gentleman's support for those organisations.

David Taylor: Pursuant to the question asked by the hon. Member for Ribble Valley (Mr. Evans), my county of Leicestershire suffers more than most from the need to landfill for domestic waste, for instance, which runs at a total of 28 million tonnes nationally, including 3,000 million disposable nappies and vast amounts of excessive product packaging. Will the Leader of the House ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs whether a statement can be made or a debate organised on how to drive up recycling and composting rates, which have stalled at 25 to 26 per cent.? We could probably achieve a national standard for recycling information to be printed on product packaging. We could also work with the Nappy Alliance to promote reusable nappies, which would make a significant contribution.

Harriet Harman: I will draw my hon. Friend's points to the attention of my fellow Ministers. I believe that every point that my hon. Friend made was absolutely spot on.

Pete Wishart: May we have a further clarifying statement on the report into the shambles of this year's Scottish elections? On Tuesday, the Secretary of State for Scotland said that he was minded to accept some of the Gould report's recommendations, but yesterday the Prime Minister gave the clear impression that he had accepted all the recommendations. What is the Government's response to the Gould report, and when will the Secretary of State for International Development come before the House to explain his role in this shambles?

Harriet Harman: We had a statement on the Gould report on Tuesday. As and when specific proposals for action come forward, they will be reported to the House. The same applies to the general question of how we ensure a fair voting system, but one that is not so complex that people find it hard to understand.

Peter Bone: As we approach the 40th anniversary of the Abortion Act 1967, and now that 7.75 million babies have been aborted in this country, is the Leader of the House able to state whether, when the human tissue and embryo Bill comes before the House, it will be possible to move an amendment to reduce the number of weeks within which an abortion may take place, which would enable the views of the House to be heard on the matter?

Harriet Harman: The issue of what amendments are tabled is a matter for Members and the issue of which amendments are selected is a matter for Mr. Speaker. The hon. Gentleman will know that the Science and Technology Committee is conducting an important inquiry into this issue. I believe that the most important consideration is to avoid unwanted pregnancies through good sex education, good and available contraception and aspiration among young girls. It is often said that the best contraception is aspiration—and responsibility among boys and young men, as this is not just an issue for young girls. It is exceptionally important that where a termination is necessary, it happens as early as possible. I pay tribute to the doctors, nurses and voluntary organisations that provide important services to women who do not want to have to seek an abortion and do not want a termination, but find that that is the best choice in the circumstances.

Ian Cawsey: As Remembrance day draws near, will my right hon. and learned Friend find time for a debate on the work of the Royal British Legion, particularly its honour the covenant campaign? Such a debate would allow hon. Members to pay tribute to the Legion's work across our constituencies and to express our support for the campaign. It would also provide an opportunity for the Government to explain what they are doing to ensure that the aims of the covenant are met.

Harriet Harman: I welcome my hon. Friend's points and I will bring them to the attention of my ministerial colleagues. We introduced veterans day and we strongly support the work of the Royal British Legion.

Patrick Mercer: The Leader of the House will be aware that the Light Dragoons, 1st Battalion the Grenadier Guards, 1st Battalion the Royal Anglian Regiment and 1st Battalion the Sherwood Foresters have just returned from Afghanistan, with more than 30 dead and several hundred wounded. May we have a debate on coroners' inquiries and the speed at which they are conducted, so that we can help to draw the mourning of the families and loved ones to a close?

Harriet Harman: The hon. Gentleman raises a very important issue. We pay tribute in the House every time one of our soldiers fighting in Iraq or Afghanistan dies. However, the coroner system is not yet able promptly to answer the questions of bereaved relatives. We have included in our draft legislative programme a coroners Bill so that we can ensure that we treat bereaved relatives properly and provide them with answers to their questions.

Gwyn Prosser: Will my right hon. and learned Friend find time for a debate on the inadequacies of private insurance cover for members of the armed services? Last week I visited my constituent, Corporal Ryan Knight, who sustained devastating injuries to his arm, leg and pelvis when he was blown up by a bomb in Afghanistan. He is now confined to a wheelchair. His insurance company, PAX—which provides insurance for some 58,000 members of the armed services—is refusing to pay up for his shattered pelvis on the grounds that it does not cover pelvises. Does my right hon. and learned Friend agree that that appears to be outrageous behaviour by the insurance company, and may we have a debate so that we can air the subject more widely?

Harriet Harman: When people who have paid their insurance premiums expecting to obtain cover find, when they need to make a claim, that small print denies them the cover they feel they have bought, it causes no end of agony and grief. My hon. Friend will know that the Secretary of State for Defence recently announced an increase in MOD compensation. However, he has made an important point about private insurance companies, which I shall bring to the attention of my colleagues in the Ministry of Defence and the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform.

Julian Lewis: Will the Leader of the House look into the operation of the named day questions system? I understood that when the maximum number of questions allowed was reduced to five per day, the other half of the contract was that the Ministries concerned would make serious efforts to answer them on the named day. Nevertheless, I usually add a bit of extra time.
	When Parliament resumed on 8 October, I was astonished to receive a holding answer to three fairly straightforward questions about the Royal Navy that I had tabled on 26 July. When I tabled another question asking why that had happened, the Minister for the Armed Forces replied:
	"The answers were delayed as my weekend ministerial box was not delivered to the office until 9 October as a result of the postal strike."—[ Official Report, 15 October 2007; Vol. 464, c. 766W.]
	Does that mean that questions do not get anywhere near Ministers until the last day or two of a 10-week recess? And what are ministerial boxes doing in the postal system?

Harriet Harman: I will look into the important points raised by the hon. Gentleman, write to him and place a copy of my letter in the Library. We all want questions to be answered promptly and clearly, and not after a delay of months.

Mark Lazarowicz: I submitted a request for a Westminster Hall Adjournment debate next week on the important subject of tackling fuel poverty. I note that, although business has been announced for next Tuesday, there are to be no Westminster Hall debates on that day. If that remains the case, will my right hon. and learned Friend ensure that a debate on the subject is held early in the new Session? It is an issue on which important decisions ought to be made by the industry and the regulator before the winter sets in. I am sure that the House would like an opportunity to discuss it early in the Session, not some time after Christmas.

Harriet Harman: I will reflect on my hon. Friend's comments, and bring them to the attention of my ministerial colleagues. Although we have done a huge amount to tackle fuel poverty, we want to make fuel poverty history.

Michael Penning: Is it possible for the Secretary of State for Transport to come to the House and explain why, nearly two years after the Buncefield explosion, a report on the explosion has still not been made public and an inquiry is still taking place behind closed doors? The local authority is under huge pressure from oil companies such as BP to allow the terminal to reopen before we know the inquiry's conclusions, which is of grave concern to my constituents. We have done without the terminal for two years; surely the oil companies could wait a little longer for the conclusions before putting pressure on local authorities.

Harriet Harman: I will bring the hon. Gentleman's points to the attention of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Transport.

Mark Harper: I know that the Leader of the House shares the view that statements to the House should be accurate. On 26 July, the Prime Minister made a machinery of government statement about the Government Equalities Office, in which he announced that the Leader of the House would become Secretary of State for Equality and the Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, the hon. Member for Stevenage (Barbara Follett), would become Under-Secretary of State for Equality. Can the Leader of the House confirm whether that is still the case? According to the list of ministerial responsibilities that has just been published, she does not appear to be Secretary of State for Equality and the hon. Member for Stevenage does not appear to have any responsibilities at the DWP. Is the Prime Minister's statement accurate, or do Members need an update?

Harriet Harman: I can bring the House fully up to date. I am the Minister in the Cabinet responsible for women and equalities, and in that capacity I am responsible for the Government Equalities Office. I am supported by my deputy, my hon. Friend the Member for Stevenage (Barbara Follett), and an excellent deputy she is. The hon. Gentleman will know that I am fully committed to such issues, and I am sure he will feel that everything is well in hand.

Philip Davies: May I support the call from my right hon. Friend the Member for Maidenhead (Mrs. May) for a debate on immigration, particularly in relation to housing? Of the 3 million houses that the Government have announced will be built before 2020, over 1 million—on their own admission—will be for future immigrants. It was recently announced that my local authority in Bradford has been told to build 50,000 new houses over the next few years by an unelected and unaccountable body, which means that if my constituents do not like it they can do nothing about it. It is all the more galling that much of the new housing is required because the Government cannot control immigration properly. May we have a debate on an issue that is very important to my constituents?

Harriet Harman: The question of migration into this country is important to everyone, including all hon. Members. Let me reiterate, however, that the country has been built on successive waves of migration. I do not know when the hon. Gentleman's family came to this country, but many other Members' parents were immigrants.
	Hon. Members can raise these issues in Home Office questions and during deliberations on the Queen's Speech. In fact, there are many occasions on which the issues can be raised.

Graham Stuart: This Government have closed more post offices more quickly than any other Government in history. They have now ordered the closure of another 2,500, including those in Hollym, Lockington, Mappleton and Grovehill road in my constituency. May we have an urgent debate on the impact on local communities of the Government's continuing post office closure programme?

Harriet Harman: The Government have done no such ordering. This is a question for the Post Office, and has been subject to consultation.

Dawn Butler: My right hon. and learned Friend has been very active during Black History month. As we approach the end of Black History month, and the end of a year in which we have commemorated the bicentenary of the abolition of the slave trade, will she ensure that we have a debate on how and when we will implement an annual slavery memorial day?

Harriet Harman: I will reflect on the points that my hon. Friend has raised. I give my full support to the important work that has been done during Black History month. Next week we shall hold a reception for black and Asian women councillors, of whom there are only about 178 in local authorities in this country. To be fully representative, there would have to be 1,000. There is still under-representation here as well as discrimination, but Black History month allows us to celebrate the contribution of black and Asian people to the country and to ensure that there is proper equality.

Points of Order

Michael Penning: On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. It is my understanding that if Members visit the constituents of others on business, they should inform them of the visit. On two occasions during the summer recess, the Leader of the House and the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions visited my constituency without doing me the courtesy of informing me first. May I seek your guidance, Madam Deputy Speaker, on that?

Madam Deputy Speaker: Members will know, and I repeat for the benefit of the hon. Gentleman, that it is one of the conventions of the House that Members should inform the Member whose constituency they are visiting.

Andrew MacKay: On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker, I seek your advice and guidance. You will see at column 285 of  Hansard that yesterday the Prime Minister suggested that the Leader of the Opposition "is misleading people". You will further see that, in response to a point of order of mine, the Speaker said:
	"I have consulted the record and I am satisfied that the Prime Minister has said nothing unparliamentary."—[ Official Report, 24 October 2007; Vol. 465, c. 291.]
	Previously, we perhaps all wrongly assumed that misleading was unparliamentary and out of order. May we now assume that, if a Minister or Member is misleading the House, that is out of order, but if he is misleading—

Madam Deputy Speaker: Order. The right hon. Gentleman has made his point fairly clearly. Having reviewed the matter, Mr. Speaker is satisfied that nothing was said by the Prime Minister that reflected directly on the character of the Leader of the Opposition, and there the matter rests. I remind the House that the Chair expects all Members to use temperate and moderate language when referring to one another at all times.

Andrew MacKay: Further to that point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker—

Madam Deputy Speaker: Order. No. The Speaker's ruling has been given. I cannot therefore accept a further point of order on that matter.

Andrew MacKay: On a fresh point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. I seek your advice and clarification. Will it be in order in future for Members to say that other Members are misleading people?

Madam Deputy Speaker: The right hon. Gentleman proposes a hypothetical situation. In each and every case, therefore, a decision will be made depending on the circumstances at that time.

Peter Bone: On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. I think that the Leader of the House inadvertently misled the House a minute ago when she said that the Government were not responsible for closing post offices, because we had an announcement that 2,500 will be closed by the Secretary of State.

Madam Deputy Speaker: The business statement finished some minutes ago. We are now on to points of order, which appear to be concluded.

Modernisation of the House of Commons

Harriet Harman: I beg to move,
	That this House welcomes the First Report of the Select Committee on Modernisation of the House of Commons on Revitalising the Chamber: the role of the back bench Member (House of Commons Paper No. 337) and approves the proposals for changes in the procedures and practices of the House set out in the Government's response to the report (Cm. 7231), including the proposals for topical questions.
	This is my first opportunity to respond to a Modernisation Committee report. I pay tribute to previous Chairs of that Committee: the late Robin Cook, my right hon. Friends the Members for Derby, South (Margaret Beckett), for Neath (Mr. Hain), for Ashfield (Mr. Hoon), and for Blackburn (Mr. Straw), who chaired it more recently. I also pay tribute to the many Members who have served on that Committee and continue to do so, including the current Chairman of the Procedure Committee, the right hon. Member for East Yorkshire (Mr. Knight), and the Modernisation Committee's most senior and longest-serving member, the hon. Member for Macclesfield (Sir Nicholas Winterton). This House is more effective as a result of their work.

Barry Sheerman: My right hon. and learned Friend has left one name off that list. He was not a Minister at the time, but Bob Sheldon, now Lord Sheldon, when he published the second part of "Shifting the Balance", did a lot for the modernisation of the Select Committee system and for what happens in the House. There was an interview with the then Prime Minister. Lord Sheldon did most important work. I hope that she recognises that.

Harriet Harman: I absolutely agree with that point. The Modernisation Committee has done important work. The work that was done by Lord Sheldon and by many others has contributed to taking forward the way in which the House operates and is able to hold the Government to account through the Select Committee and other systems.
	Today there are five motions before us, covering the recent report from the Modernisation Committee "Revitalising the Chamber: The Role of the Back-Bench Member", and the recent report from the Procedure Committee on public petitions and early-day motions, and there is a motion relating to European Standing Committees. I would like to say a few words about the context of those measures.
	I think that we would all agree that we need to be prepared to re-examine many aspects of how the country is governed, in order to reinvigorate our democracy and how our Government are held to account. We all know now the statistics of election turnout and the underlying evidence of voter disengagement. That needs to be addressed in many different ways. In his statement to the House in July, my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister proposed to the Speaker that a Speaker's Conference be established to look further at some of those issues.
	The Modernisation Committee agreed earlier this week that it would take forward short inquiries on the publication of the draft legislative programme, departmental annual debates, regional accountability, and recall and dissolution. I hope that all hon. Members will contribute to the Committee's inquiries. As I said, they will be short inquiries, and they will come forward with proposals.

Kevan Jones: Does my right hon. and learned Friend agree that one of the things that was welcomed in the north-east region was the proposal to create regional Select Committees? It is disappointing that they have not come into being yet.

Harriet Harman: It is important that we have regional accountability for the north and other regions. I pay tribute to the first Minister for the North East of England, who is carrying out his important duties. We intend to press ahead with regional accountability, but we must get the processes right. We must ensure that the Committees are practical and work properly and effectively, that the House supports them and that in the regions concerned they are recognised as making a legitimate and important contribution to strengthening accountability.

Kevan Jones: I do not draw much encouragement from what my right hon. and learned Friend has just said. If there is a retreat from having a Select Committee for the north-east, not only will there be a lot of disappointment within the region but there will be a lot of unhappy Labour Back Benchers.

Harriet Harman: I reassure my hon. Friend that there is no intention to retreat on anything and that we intend to discuss fully with colleagues on both sides of the House how we go forward in that respect. I know that he would agree that we need a practical solution that enables Members in the region to hold public agencies such as the regional development agency to account effectively. We will work together to ensure that we deliver that. We want to go forward with it as promptly as possible and the Modernisation Committee inquiry will be the first opportunity to look at that.

Peter Soulsby: Does my right hon. and learned Friend accept that the concern that has been expressed about the resource implications of creating regional Select Committees should not lead to a retreat from that commitment, and that the answer to that concern is to make those resources available?

Harriet Harman: My hon. Friend is right. One of the issues that we need to look at is how the resources of the House are allocated between the different functions of the House. That is one of the things that we need to discuss. I can tell from the response already that there will be a lively, open and transparent debate on those issues. There is no suggestion that the matter should be left in the long grass.

Michael Connarty: I thank my right hon. and learned Friend because I believe that she is looking favourably at the amendment that I and other members of the European Scrutiny Committee have tabled to item 5 on today's agenda. However, on topical debates, it is always a concern to Select Committees that not enough time is given on the Floor of the House for debates on topics that are of importance to those Committees. Can we have an assurance that topical debates will not force out debates that have been requested by a Select Committee after serious scrutiny? They are obviously seen as matters of such concern that the request is made that they be debated here in the Chamber.

Harriet Harman: The Modernisation Committee will look at departmental debate days. Topical debates are intended to give Back-Bench Members an opportunity to ask questions without having to table them in advance. The intention is to make the work of the House more topical and to have more topical debates. I hope that they will be welcomed. I think that we all agree that we should improve scrutiny of European matters. My hon. Friend, who is the Chairman of the European Scrutiny Committee, has made strong representations about how the system needs to be improved, and I intend to accept his amendment. We will seek to sort this matter out within three months of today, rather than 12 months. The Modernisation Committee reported on this issue in March 2005, so an additional 12 months would be unsatisfactory. Three months should be long enough for us to find a solution that he and others will agree to. I thank him for tabling the amendment.

Barry Sheerman: On resources, I support the principle of regional Select Committees and regional Ministers; the ministerial team is already proving its effectiveness. However, we must address the pressure that is put on MPs in this House. As Chairman of a Select Committee, I am finding that there is a small group of MPs who are free to accept membership of a Select Committee. We have a growing number of Ministers, paid and unpaid, and growing shadow ministerial teams who discount themselves from Select Committee work. We also have a proliferation of Parliamentary Private Secretaries who have, up to now, been prevented from being members of Select Committees. It is becoming difficult to attract Members on to Select Committees.

Harriet Harman: Whatever change we make to ensure proper regional accountability, we must make absolutely sure that we do not undermine the very important work of the Select Committees. Those involved, particularly the Select Committee Chairmen and the Liaison Committee, will need to be involved in the discussions of how we take forward regional accountability.

Simon Hughes: On European scrutiny, it is nonsense to have Select Committees doing serious work and producing reports that are not debated more widely before the Government come to a final view. A couple of days ago several Public Accounts Committee reports were debated. In the same way, there ought to be periodic opportunities to debate Select Committee reports by Department before the Government have come to a final view. That would make the work worth while, not just for parliamentarians but for all those who give evidence, orally or in other forms. It would show that we took that work seriously if we had a chance to debate it.

Harriet Harman: Our view is that it is a good idea for the House to be able to debate Select Committee reports once the House has had the opportunity to see the Government's response. Otherwise, the House would have an opportunity to debate the Select Committee report proposals, but not to debate the Government's response unless further time was set aside for debate.

Theresa May: The Leader of the House has been most generous with her time. I am grateful to her for indicating that she intends to bring forward proposals to improve the scrutiny of European legislation, on which the Government, sadly, have been dragging their feet for some time. May I commend my proposals, which include making the scrutiny reserve statutory so that Ministers could not go to Brussels without the House giving its view on their proposed position, and to enable, say, 150 Members to require an issue that is going before the European Scrutiny Committee to be subject to a full debate in this Chamber?

Harriet Harman: I warmly welcome proposals from the right hon. Lady, who is a member of the Modernisation Committee and shadow Leader of the House, and we will consider them in the short period before we come back to the House with proposals on European scrutiny.

John Redwood: I favour the Leader of the House's proposals for more topical debates and questions. But before we get muddled up about regional accountability—with which some of us do not agree—could we have some national accountability? One of the frustrations that many of my electors have about this place is that when MPs ask perfectly sensible, intelligent but tough questions of Ministers, there are no answers. We then have "Groundhog Day" with the recital of idiotic banalities of a political kind, instead of Ministers actually trying to answer the question. If they answer the question the first time, we will have rather more accountability.

Harriet Harman: The right hon. Gentleman will have to come and see me to explain further what he is talking about, as I do not recognise his description. I try to ensure that I give as clear and full answers as possible.
	The reform measures before the House today reflect work that began before I became Leader of the House and will contribute to this House remaining at the centre of the nation's affairs; not just being at the centre, but being seen to be at the centre so that the important role of the House is clearly understood by the public.

David Heathcoat-Amory: The Leader of the House has mentioned the public, who are very important. It is three and a half years since the Modernisation Committee made recommendations about European scrutiny and the Government have done nothing to implement them. She has now said that she will bring forward some proposals. Does she agree that the European Scrutiny Committee should meet in public in the meantime? That would help the public to understand what we are doing on their behalf. It is monstrous that that Committee meets in secret; I know, because I am a member of it. It is not surprising that the gap between us and the public on European issues has widened in recent years. Will she look favourably on an early change to Standing Orders to permit that Committee to meet in public?

Harriet Harman: It is for Select Committees to decide what deliberations between Committee members will take place in private and what they choose to regard as a public session.

David Heathcoat-Amory: rose—

Harriet Harman: Madam Deputy Speaker, I feel that I must press on with my speech. One of my proposals is that Front-Bench speeches should be restricted to 20 minutes. I feel that I am running out of that 20 minutes and I am only on the third page of my speech. I dare not tell the House how many more pages I have.

John Bercow: Although I welcome the Government's willingness to provide for more topical debates and public interest debates, I am concerned that the character of the process is rather top-down. It appears that the intention is that these matters should be determined principally by the Government Whips, probably with a bit of consultation with my right hon. Friend the shadow Leader of the House, but not much more. Given that the Select Committee inquiry was into the role of the Back Bencher, may I exhort the Leader of the House to consider the merits of the evidence given by the hon. Member for Reading, West (Martin Salter), who, supported by the Hansard Society, argued that there should be a Back-Bench trigger in the form of a number of signatories of an early-day motion automatically resulting in a debate taking place, whether the Government and Opposition Front Benches liked it or not?

Harriet Harman: I need to press on with my speech. Some of the answers are set out in a deliberated form further on.

David Heathcoat-Amory: Will the Leader of the House give way?

Harriet Harman: I will not. I hope to answer the right hon. Gentleman's question.

David Heathcoat-Amory: On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker.

Harriet Harman: All right, I will answer this one, but I really must get on—

Madam Deputy Speaker: Order. A point of order from the right hon. Gentleman.

David Heathcoat-Amory: On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. The Leader of the House, quite unintentionally, has misled the House by asserting that it is up to Standing Committees whether they meet in public or not. In the last Parliament, the European Scrutiny Committee voted for its weekly deliberative sessions to be in public, but the Leader of the House did nothing to change the Standing Orders. What she said was incorrect and I invite her to correct the record.

Madam Deputy Speaker: Order. The right hon. Gentleman has made his point. It is not a point of order for the Chair, but the Leader of the House may wish to address those concerns in her reply.

Michael Connarty: We must clarify the record, because it was not under my chairmanship but under a previous chairmanship, when a motion was moved and carried that the Committee should meet in public. The Chairman was, unfortunately, ill at the time, but when he returned, he raised the matter again. It was thoroughly debated and the reasons for the feeling that the proposal was inappropriate were explained. That was felt particularly by our advisers, who give confidential advice to the Committee in their deliberative sessions, and it was explained why the proposal would compromise their position. The Chairman took a fresh vote and the decision was overturned. As it stands, the Committee's position is that it does not wish to meet in public.

Harriet Harman: I thank my hon. Friend for that clarification. I shall press on with my speech clarifying why we have brought these motions before the House. If the trigger were simply a number of Members signing an early-day motion, we might find that this House would debate the football results. Someone such as myself would need to provide a filter so that that did not happen.
	The Government accept most of the recommendations in the two Modernisation Committee reports before the House. They are particularly valuable in placing reform firmly in the context of how Members, in particular Back Benchers, manage the different aspects of their work. Any changes must reflect the priorities of individual Members and their need to devote time both to this House and to their constituents. Those demands have been ever increasing, and particularly marked for many hon. Members has been the growth in constituency work. That has been followed by a necessary increase—almost a doubling, in real terms—in the financial support provided to Members for this work since 1997 in the form of staffing and allowances. In my view, that is a good thing. The Government will publish the Senior Salaries Review Body report on pay and allowances for the House to consider shortly.

Barry Sheerman: No one denies that extra resources have been provided, but the level of work in a major Select Committee is onerous in terms of the amount of research, reading and so on, and a small extra contribution towards the research budget for Members who choose to join one would make a big difference. Sometimes it would make the difference between someone choosing to serve on a Select Committee or choosing to become a Parliamentary Private Secretary.

Harriet Harman: Perhaps my hon. Friend can raise that when this House discusses the SSRB's report on allowances. That will take occur shortly.

John Bercow: Very shortly.

Harriet Harman: Very shortly. I must work out what comes next, after very shortly. Perhaps it is very, very shortly.
	Hon. Members have an important role in their constituencies, but they also have vital work in this Chamber and in Select and Public Bill Committees. It is a timeless characteristic of our system that Members arrive at the general from the particular. The different roles that make up a Member of Parliament's work are not separate and competing, but interconnected and interdependent. That is why it is important, as the Modernisation Committee report highlighted, for Members to be able to organise their time as effectively as possible. Thus Chamber debates have to be organised in a way that allows hon. Members to know that they can contribute.
	I shall deal first with the Modernisation Committee report on promoting interest in the Chamber. Its central theme is to promote the work of the Chamber by providing greater opportunities for Members to bring issues swiftly into the Chamber while they are still topical and maximising the opportunities for Back Benchers to participate in the Chamber. The Government have accepted most of the recommendations. Some of them—for example, those relating to new topical procedures and speaking times—are quite far-reaching, so it is proposed that in the first instance, they should run for a trial period during the next Session.
	The Modernisation Committee proposes that business managers and the usual channels should seek to promote greater topicality in the first instance through trying to find opportunities to bring more topical issues to the House in two ways: by rebalancing the regular slots currently recognised by the House for such matters as the Queen's Speech, defence debates, the Budget debate and so on—I would welcome a debate in the House with contributions from all parties on the overall shape of those annual debates—and by being readier to hold half-day debates rather than full-day debates. That is not in the gift of the Government, and if we are to secure those changes, we will need the co-operation of the official Opposition and the whole House.
	The Modernisation Committee proposes that debates should be seen to be more significant, both to Members and to the outside world. That could be done by holding more such debates on substantive motions—on a form of words enabling the House to express a specific view—and in other cases, through ending the practice of holding debates on the historic motion, "That this House do now adjourn", when in fact the House intends to proceed to a full debate. The Government have accepted the Committee's recommendation on that latter point. Accordingly, where the House does not seek to express a specific view on a subject, it should use a standard motion of the form, "That this House has considered the matter of...". The specified subject matter for such motions, as with Adjournment motions, would be expressed in neutral terms and would not be amendable, but what is going on in this House would be much clearer to colleagues and to the outside world.
	I turn to the question of topicality: urgent procedures, topical questions and topical debates. The Government are accepting a range of proposals to maximise the opportunities for the House to consider the pressing issues of the moment, including two key proposals: having so-called "topical questions" and weekly topical debates. Topical questions will mean that most of the major Departments will have a period of their Question Time similar to Prime Minister's Questions, in which open questions will be allowed. The period will be 15 minutes of topical questions for Departments answering for a full hour and 10 minutes for those answering for 40 minutes. The precise rules, and the calling of Members after the initial open question, will operate as with other questions under the Speaker's direction, and will allow topical matters to be raised.
	Topical debates will be weekly 90-minute debates on a topic of the day that is of international, national or regional importance. The selection of topic will, as proposed by the Modernisation Committee, be announced by the Leader of the House, following representations received and contacts through the usual channels. Some flexibility must be preserved as to exactly when the debate should take place each week. When the House does not sit for a full week, there would generally be no such debate. I would envisage announcing the slot for the topical debate during Thursday's business questions—I would be able to hear from hon. Members from all parties at that point—and if the slot were for the coming Monday or Tuesday, I would envisage announcing the subject at that time too. To ensure proper topicality, if the slot was to be for the following Wednesday or Thursday, I plan to give notice of the subject not before the Monday afternoon.
	I would be happy to receive representations on the subject for topical debates from Members through any route they choose, including business questions. This innovation may be the most significant of all the measures proposed today. It will enable the House to hold the Government to account more effectively and to air issues of topical concern.
	The right hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs. May) tabled an amendment drawing attention to parts of the Modernisation Committee report that were not in the bold recommendations and were not fully reflected in our response. She asks for the subject for the topical debate to be announced by the Leader of the House following consultation with business managers. As I have stated, that is indeed what we envisage happening, and that would include consultations through the usual channels.
	The right hon. Lady also proposes a fortnightly written ministerial statement listing the subjects proposed by hon. Members. I am, of course, willing to see how best the system can operate in terms of representations and how the process can be as open as possible, but the precise mechanism proposed may not be the best one. We do not know how the process will work in practice. Dozens, or even hundreds, of suggestions or requests might be made, given in all sorts of different ways, so it might not be straightforward to compress all such representations into a written statement. Indeed, we would not want to encourage a situation in which Members sought opportunities to manipulate the process by setting up campaigns. It may well be that in practice most representations come through Thursday morning business questions anyway, in which case everyone will be able to hear them at first hand. The whole arrangement is, of course, experimental and we will be able to review it in a year's time.

Theresa May: I am grateful to the Leader of the House for her generosity in giving way. The Modernisation Committee report proposed the fortnightly written statement as a way to ensure that hon. Members can see the subjects that have been proposed and make judgments about the decisions made by the Leader of the House as to which are chosen for topical debates. I accept that there may be questions of practicality, but the process must be open. The Leader of the House, in consultation with the usual channels, must not be left to choose subjects, with hon. Members having no idea whether they genuinely reflect the views of the House.

Harriet Harman: I agree that we want a process that is both open and practical. We will have to consider in some detail how to achieve both objectives.
	The Committee has also proposed that there should be substantive debates in Westminster Hall on motions on Select Committee reports and on balloted private Members' motions. I think that we have to look at these proposals in the light of how individual Members now prioritise their work. Let us be clear: substantive motions, with the potential for amendments to them, will inevitably bring with them increased whipping into what is at the moment unwhipped business. That would change the character of that business, and would also require the attendance of hon. Members at many more Divisions. I wonder whether hon. Members would consider that a good use of their time.
	However, the Government have agreed with the proposals in the Procedure Committee report that relevant EDMs and petitions, rather than being the subject of any direct debate, should be capable of having a "tag" on the Order Paper if they are the subject of a debate selected by an hon. Member.
	The Modernisation Committee has also proposed a regular half-hour Select Committee slot in Westminster Hall, in addition to the existing regular Thursday afternoon debating slots, to discuss recently published reports, perhaps in a very short debate or in the form of a statement. The Government have considered this proposal, but as I said earlier, in our response we have indicated that we do not think it particularly helpful for the House to hold formal exchanges of this kind on reports before the Government have had a chance to consider their response to those reports. Opportunities are already in place to raise such matters in other ways—whether outside the House or inside, for example at Question Time—but questions about the kinds of business to be taken in Westminster Hall, and how it can be handled, may be appropriate for further review in the Modernisation Committee.

John Redwood: Will the Leader of the House give way?

John Bercow: Will the right hon. and learned Lady give way?

Harriet Harman: I think that I shall press on, if I may. I have answered a great many questions, and there are Back Benchers who have speeches to make. I do not want to run out of time. We had two statements today even before we got to this business, and I must protect the rights of Back Benchers who want to make speeches.
	I turn now to the question of petitions, and to the amendment in the name of the hon. Member for Congleton (Ann Winterton) and others. However, before I move on to the Procedure Committee report on petitions and EDMs, perhaps I could just mention the Modernisation Committee's recommendation that the absolute bar on the use of hand-held devices for keeping up with emails should be lifted—provided, as the Modernisation Committee noted, that that causes no disturbance. The hon. Member for Congleton and others have tabled an amendment proposing that this change should be rejected.
	That is obviously a matter for the House, but my own view is that it is a sensible proposal. The Modernisation Committee, following representations from a number of hon. Members, took the view that it was a sensible measure to accommodate hon. Members' practical needs if they were to be expected to spend considerable time waiting in the Chamber to speak and listening to the debate. I think that the proposal is realistic and would be genuinely helpful. Hon. Members will note that if the House agrees to the terms of the Government response by agreeing to the motion tabled, and as explained in the explanatory memorandum, the change would come into force only when Mr. Speaker has approved the necessary arrangements.
	As we will all recognise, petitions have come increasingly under the spotlight as interest has grown in different forms of direct engagement with the public. Our own petitions procedures have gradually been brought up to date over the years. For example, the top copy no longer has to be handwritten, the rules for eligibility of petitions have been simplified, and the Clerks in the Journal Office can always assist Members in ensuring that petitions are in order. The time is now right to develop the procedures further, to make more apparent the opportunities that people have to address this place directly.
	The latest report from the Procedure Committee has been a balanced study of what further steps might be taken. It proposes the retention of the Member link to an incoming petition, but makes a number of proposals to make petitions more visible in the House's procedures. They include proposals that petitions be published in  Hansard, that the Government respond to petitions and that Select Committees specifically include on their agendas the petitions that have been forwarded to them. Another possibility is that there should be a dedicated debate slot for petitions in Westminster Hall.
	The Government have accepted most of those recommendations, as outlined in our response document. In respect of Westminster Hall debates, we think it better that existing processes for Back Benchers to procure debates should be used, but that it should be possible to "tag" any relevant petition on the Order Paper for the debate.
	When it comes to responding to petitions, it is important to note that the Government have now given an undertaking that
	"provided that Members continue to give careful attention to a proposed petition before sponsoring it...substantive petitions should normally receive a response from the relevant government department."
	The Committee has also indicated that it will be looking further at whether some form of e-petitioning—in particular for gathering signatures—can be incorporated into the petitions process, on the basis that the Member link to a petition should be retained. The Government look forward to this second report in due course. The Government have agreed with all the specific recommendations addressed to them concerning EDMs, which continue to perform a valuable role in allowing Members to raise a variety of local or national issues in a measured way.
	I turn now to European Standing Committees. The motion relating to European Standing Committees is designed solely to allow the present temporary system for the appointment of European Standing Committees to continue. The appointment of the Committees on a one-off basis as and when there is a need, rather than appointing three permanent Committees as envisaged under Standing Order No. 119, has existed as a temporary measure until any more comprehensive reform of the European scrutiny system is put in place.
	I am well aware that neither the system envisaged by the Standing Orders, nor the temporary system currently in place, is satisfactory. The 2005 Modernisation Committee report on European scrutiny identified failings, and I think that many hon. Members here would agree, but we have yet to identify the precise solutions.
	The Modernisation Committee report contained several recommendations relating to the European Standing Committee process. My predecessors as Leader of the House and I have all been looking at the matter closely. I agree that we need to identify improvements to the European Standing Committee process. We are actively looking at ways in which this might be done.
	I come now to the amendment in the name of my hon. Friend the Member for Linlithgow and East Falkirk (Michael Connarty) and other members of the European Scrutiny Committee. In the meantime, the power to appoint Committees in the way set out under the temporary arrangement—which is what allows the system to work effectively at all at present—will expire at the end of this Session unless we renew it. My hon. Friend and the other members of the European Scrutiny Committee have tabled an amendment to provide that the extension would be for three months only into the next Session.
	While I cannot guarantee that we will be able to bring forward alternative proposals within that time, I will be working hard with my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary and my hon. Friend the Minister for Europe to bring forward proposals that command the support of the whole House, including the European Scrutiny Committee. I am therefore content to accept the amendment.
	The Modernisation Committee and other Committees of this House have done us a favour in bringing forward some very sensible suggestions about how we could do our business better. I hope that all hon. Members will support the measures, as they will provide greater topicality for our debates, enhance and strengthen the role of Back Benchers, and improve our scrutiny of Government.

Several hon. Members: rose —

Madam Deputy Speaker: Order. I advise hon. Members that motions 1 to 5 on the Order Paper—on Modernisation of the House of Commons; Modernisation of the House of Commons (Changes to Standing Orders); Procedure; Procedure (Changes to Standing Orders); and European Standing Committees (Temporary Nomination)—will be discussed together. Mr. Speaker has selected amendments (a) and (b) to motion 1, on Modernisation of the House of Commons, and amendment (a) to motion 5, on European Standing Committees (Temporary Nomination).

Theresa May: As a member of the Modernisation Committee, may I begin by thanking all those involved in the preparation of this report? During our inquiry, we heard not only from hon. Members but from representatives of the media and from academics, officials and the Clerk of the House. We received the usual high standard of support from the Clerks Department and other staff, and I should like to thank them too for their work, and to commend them on it.

Martin Horwood: Will the right hon. Lady give way?

Theresa May: I have barely started my speech and am not sure what the hon. Gentleman wants to intervene about. However, I will give way to him.

Martin Horwood: I am very grateful to the right hon. Lady, but I want to ask about her reference to the hard work done by staff. Does she agree that, given the theme of modernisation, it is absurd for proposals to be made that Members of Parliament should take precedence in tea and photocopier queues? Another proposal has been that what amount to executive washrooms be retained in this place. Are those not precisely the sort of proposals that bring this House into disrepute, and are they not an insult to the very hard-working staff to whom she has referred?

Theresa May: As it happens, I entirely agree with the hon. Gentleman that Members should not take precedence in tea and canteen queues in this House.
	To return to the motion, the sovereignty of Parliament in our constitution is known, or should be known, by all, but to ensure that our constitution remains healthy, and that the way we govern ourselves continues to work properly, we have to ensure that Parliament stays strong. We need to do that in a variety of ways—by preventing its domination by the Executive, by protecting and extending its democratic legitimacy and by making sure that what goes on in this and the other place is relevant to what goes on outside this building, in the real world, in the lives of the people who put us here.
	The Prime Minister and his Government talk much about making Parliament stronger and more relevant. Indeed, the Prime Minister has said that he wants to make Parliament the "crucible" of our political life. If only his actions matched his words people might actually believe that that was not just another piece of spin. We have had supposedly spin-free statements spun to the press beforehand, troop withdrawals double-counted and announced at a photo-shoot first rather than to Parliament and a pre-Budget report whose detail bore little resemblance to the statement made to the House by the Chancellor.
	Sir Winston Churchill said of the duties of a Member of Parliament:
	"The first duty of a member of Parliament is to do what he thinks is right for Great Britain. His second duty is to his constituents. It is only in the third place that his duty to party takes rank. All these three loyalties should be observed, but there is no doubt of the order in which they stand."
	Given the way the Prime Minister treated Parliament when he was Chancellor and the way he is treating it now, and the way he treated the country by considering a snap election as long as it suited the Labour party, I fear that he has Churchill's three loyalties in the wrong order.

Barry Sheerman: I thought the right hon. Lady would treat the debate seriously and talk about the motion in a bipartisan manner. I wish she would come back on track. Does she think that the Modernisation Committee proposals have countered one of the great frustrations in this place? Typically, when we have debates on a topical issue or any other issue, there are long speeches from Front Benchers and even longer ones from Liberal Democrat Front Benchers—they all outbid one another in terms of length. We will be doing something about that, but Back Benchers still do not know when we will be called to speak. Grown-up adults wait on the Back Benches wondering whether we will be called to speak. Why cannot we know—

Madam Deputy Speaker: Order. I remind the hon. Gentleman that interventions should be brief, too.

Theresa May: Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. I was about to suggest that the hon. Member for Huddersfield (Mr. Sheerman) took his own counsel in that regard.
	If the Prime Minister is serious about making Parliament the crucible of our political life, he should begin by treating people with respect and Parliament with propriety. If he wants to achieve his supposed goal, he needs to transfer power from the Executive to Parliament, which is part of what the Modernisation Committee proposals are about.
	The most positive changes in the motion concern the topicality of what goes on in the House. If the public, the media and, indeed, Members are to pay more attention to Parliament we need to make sure that we debate topical issues and that we debate them quickly enough for them to remain topical. Of course, we can make use of urgent questions, Standing Order No. 24 debates and Opposition day debates, but none is perfect in ensuring topicality. Urgent questions can be turned down and in any case give rise only to questions rather than a proper debate. At present, Standing Order No. 24 debates come at the expense of other business, and Opposition day debates have no regular slot; their timing is up to the Government and they tend to be bunched towards the end of a Session. Moreover, Opposition time is limited.
	The answer to improving topicality cannot be simply to limit the freedom of manoeuvre of the Opposition parties, so the provision that there should be topical debates of an hour and a half is welcome, subject to two caveats. First, it would be unacceptable for the innovation to eat into Opposition time; the Government already dominate the business of the House and Opposition time is limited, as I said. If we are to improve the strength of Parliament, that innovation must not come at the expense of the Opposition, as the Modernisation Committee report said, so I should be grateful if the Leader of the House, or her deputy in the winding-up speech, could give the House a commitment that topical debates will not eat into time given to Opposition parties for their debates.
	My second concern relates to my amendment, which the Leader of the House addressed. The Modernisation Committee recommended that subjects for topical debates would be announced by the Leader of the House following consultation with business managers and that the Leader of the House would issue—as we discussed—a fortnightly written ministerial statement showing the list of proposals made by private Members and the debates that had taken place. However, the motion merely states that a Minister of the Crown will take the decision about which proceedings will form part of a topical debate.
	The issue is important. In her speech, the Leader of the House referred to the fact that suggestions would come from Back Benchers. It is essential that we make it clear in this debate that topical debates will not simply be in the gift of Ministers, but will be announced by the Leader of the House following propositions from Back-Bench Members. It is crucial that debates can be initiated by Back Benchers and not just Front Benchers.

John Redwood: Does my right hon. Friend agree that if, to avoid embarrassment or difficulty for the Government, Ministers select for topical debate subjects that are not a hot topic in the media or for the Opposition, it will bring the whole idea of topicality into disrepute, which will pose quite a problem for the Government?

Theresa May: My right hon. Friend is right. An example springs to mind. If the hon. Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston (Ms Stuart) were to suggest a debate on a referendum on the EU constitutional treaty and the Government refused to accept it, many people would have something to say about the issue.

John Bercow: It is of course important that we know not only the contents of the list of proposed topics for the topical debates but the number of right hon. and hon. Members who have made a request for each. That does not mean that the judgment must be only quantitative; it can be qualitative as well, but we ought to know how many wanted which. Given that the Leader of the House said she was happy to hear from Members by letter, e-mail or in person, does my right hon. Friend agree that there can be no objection to the right hon. and learned Lady's subsequently letting us know how many people requested which debate? What is there to hide?

Theresa May: I absolutely agree. The innovation is important for the House so when it is introduced we must take every opportunity to show that it is about Back-Bench Members being able to raise topics. In response to an intervention from my hon. Friend about the number of Members who could sign early-day motions and thereby generate debates on them, the Leader of the House referred to the nature of some of the early-day motions that are tabled. I think we all agree that there are some for which it would not be appropriate to take up debating time in the House, but I trust that Back Benchers would be able to judge when a subject was serious enough for topical debate and when it was not suitable.

Richard Shepherd: I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for talking about Back Benchers, because the report could read as a cosy invitation to the Government to continue to control everything. An amendment proposed in the Select Committee by its Liberal Democrat member would have provided for the use of a ballot, which would be the simplest way of getting out of the craw of the Government or the usual channels. The amendment was voted down, but is not a ballot for all Back-Bench Members—it would exclude Front-Bench Members—the way to assert the vitality of the House?

Theresa May: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for making that point. He has been promoting the ballot proposal not only in the Select Committee but elsewhere. We need to consider the appropriate means for ensuring that Back Benchers can raise topics in the House. I shall refer later to private Members' motions, because if we are genuinely interested in the House having greater ability both to decide what happens in this place and to hold the Government to account, such opportunities are important.

Jo Swinson: Does the right hon. Lady agree that although it is important for Back Benchers to have more say about topical debates, we should go further and allow people outside this place to have a say? Does she regret the fact that there is no recommendation for a petitions Committee, which could, for example, recommend that a petition be the subject of a topical debate?

Theresa May: The Procedure Committee has examined the question of a petitions Committee very carefully. I know that there is such a structure in the Scottish Parliament and I have talked to MSPs about it. That Committee is not without its downsides—it is not universally positive. The Procedure Committee has reached the right position after due and proper deliberation.
	I hope that the Deputy Leader of the House will use her winding-up speech to put it clearly on the record that the Government intend to allow Back Benchers to have a say on the issues that should be discussed in topical debates. Beyond that, however, there is also a need for more topical questions. Under the existing arrangements, there have been many occasions when it has not been possible to raise hot topics of the day during departmental oral questions, despite hon. Members' ingenuity, simply because a relevant matter was not on the Order Paper. The Government have reduced the time in advance of departmental questions before which questions must be tabled, which is to be welcomed, but a period of time for topical questions is the right way to go.
	Prior to today's business statement, I was worried that there might be a problem with the introduction of topical questions if the existing cycle of questions was retained. Now that the Leader of the House has agreed to move on to a different cycle—I assume that that will be a five-week cycle so that Departments such as the Ministry of Justice will have a full amount of time—topical questions will be practical and an important innovation.
	I am a great supporter of the idea that we should have debates on general issues. I have long argued that the House needs to be able to debate cross-cutting issues, so I hope that the general debates will address that shortcoming. However, the Leader of the House suggested that if we increased the number of general debates and private Members' motions, there would be more whipping. I am on the record as saying that the House should have more general debates that are subject to free votes, although that view is not always shared by my colleagues in the Whips Office. Parliament should have more opportunities to give a view on issues of the day. It should be able to give such a view on issues that are aside from the Government's proposed legislation, such as by debating the causes of antisocial behaviour and reaching a view. Such opportunities would be important.
	The House always tends to address issues according to the way in which Whitehall Departments are divided into silos. However, people do not think of things in such a way. Businesses and organisations in every other walk of life are moving away from traditional models towards matrix models of management. The House needs to find ways of adapting to such models of management. If we asked modern management consultants to design Government Departments, I am sure that they would not produce the structure of Whitehall today. While I realise that that is not a subject for this debate, Parliament needs to move forward in a way that restricts the reliance on debating issues in silos and thus enables general debates to take place.

John Bercow: My right hon. Friend was showing very welcome signs of a commitment to what I call über-modernisation through what she said about the way in which Government Departments should be organised and the House should conduct itself in turn. May I gently put it to her that if we are to apply that principle, of which I am a vociferous supporter, there is a good case for doing so in relation to Westminster Hall as well? Most members of the public in full-time work would ordinarily work on a Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday—and possibly beyond that. Is there any good reason why we continue to deny ourselves the possibility of debates in Westminster Hall, either on a substantive motion or a motion for the Adjournment, on Mondays? Why cannot we have such debates?

Theresa May: As ever, my hon. Friend makes a good point. I could probably be described—if I dare to try my German—as a frühe-moderniser rather than the term that he used. We need to look at what happens in Westminster Hall and how it is used. I will be entirely open with hon. Members. I was reluctant to accept the introduction of Westminster Hall in the early days, but I believe that it has been a good move by the House. We need to move on to the next stage of Westminster Hall to determine how we can make better use of it.
	Some Members might say that we do not have enough time for all the changes that are being brought forward, such as the proposals for general debates. I say to the Government that the answer to that is very simple. If there was not so much legislation going through the House, Parliament would have time to do its job properly in terms of scrutinising legislation, questioning Ministers and debating important issues of the day.
	It is important that as many Members as possible are able to speak in such debates. I support the provision for greater flexibility on Members' contributions to debates. It is sensible to improve Members' ability to participate by limiting Front Benchers' contributions—I am wary of the time that I am taking.

Richard Shepherd: We are talking about 90-minute debates. Under the proposed Standing Order, a third of that time will go to Front Benchers. This is just the old game, is it not? The report was meant to be called "Strengthening the role of the backbencher"—that was what we wanted to do. However, we are handing things over to the usual channels and the Government—the Crown in Parliament—who are not responsible and control the totality of the business that comes before the House.

Theresa May: My hon. Friend makes a valid point about the need for Front Benchers to be extremely careful about the amount of time that they take up in hour-and-a-half debates. It is not necessary for Front Benchers to take up all the time allowed by the proposals. I echo the comments made by the hon. Member for Huddersfield (Mr. Sheerman) about the increasing length of time for which Liberal Democrat Front-Bench spokesmen seem to speak. During one of our Opposition day debates, the Liberal Democrat spokesman spoke for longer than both the Government and Conservative spokesmen.
	Let me refer to two recommendations that were rejected. It was proposed that Select Committee reports should be debated in Westminster Hall—this relates to the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Buckingham (John Bercow) about the use of Westminster Hall. At a time when many of us believe that the imbalance between Parliament and the Executive is too great, Select Committees have been a great success story. Their work deserves a higher profile and debating it more regularly in the House would contribute to that. There are probably other ways in which Select Committees could be further strengthened, and I hope to come forward with proposals in the near future. That perfectly reasonable recommendation would have strengthened Select Committees and Parliament, but the Government ignored it. That was a pity because they have missed an opportunity.
	The Leader of the House also refused to entertain the recommendation that the House should experiment with a ballot for opportunities to debate private Members' motions, to which I referred in my response to my hon. Friend the Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Mr. Shepherd). That would have made a powerful change to the balance between Parliament and the Executive. The Leader of the House has said that there would be practical difficulties, but one cannot help but suspect that, as is the case for debates on Select Committee reports, the truth is that the proposal would relax the Government's ability to control the business of the House rather too much for the Executive. While today's proposals are to be welcomed, they fall short in those two key respects.
	Although the changes are welcome and will go some way towards making the House more relevant to the public, the relevance test was just one of the three challenges for reform. The other two—the prevention of the domination of Parliament by the Executive and the need to protect and extend Parliament's democratic legitimacy—will need further inventive and perhaps controversial measures.
	As I said earlier, we have heard a lot from the Prime Minister and the Leader of the House on how the Government supposedly want to strengthen Parliament, yet the Prime Minister will use his majority to force through the ratification of the renamed European constitution. However, without a referendum, he has no manifesto mandate to do so. He has failed to address the most obvious flaw in the post-devolution constitutional settlement, namely the West Lothian question. I am grateful for the fact that the Leader of the House has said that within three months there will be proposals on the scrutiny of European legislation, but I hope that she is prepared to go far enough to ensure genuinely better scrutiny of European legislation. That is in no way to decry the hard work done by members of the European Scrutiny Committee. However, the current system means that we are poor at scrutinising European legislation. Today's changes are welcome, but even within the context of the Modernisation Committee, they could have gone further.

Martin Horwood: Will the right hon. Lady give way?

Theresa May: I am just coming to the end of my remarks, so the hon. Gentleman will forgive me for not giving way.
	In truth, if we want a Parliament that can stand up to the Government, we need to go much further than the Committee's recommendations. The Leader of the House is not just the Government's representative in the House; she is the House's representative in the Government. She has responsibility for reform, and if she wants to follow in the line of the reforming Leaders of the House to whom she referred, she needs to take that responsibility. She needs to be bolder, and she needs to ensure that the House can truly redress the balance between itself and the Executive.

Michael Connarty: First, I once again formally thank my right hon. and learned Friend the Leader of the House for accepting the amendment tabled by the European Scrutiny Committee members who attended our meeting yesterday. We were concerned that another year would be too long to wait; it would seem to signal to the public—and to lobby groups and business organisations that have spoken to us about the lack of progress on European scrutiny, apart from in discussion by our Committee—that we were not giving the subject its proper priority. Europe produces a large burden of regulations, framework decisions and directives that impact on people's lives and the nation's business and social community. I think that it was a former chief executive of the CBI who made the accusation that the House seems to be asleep when it comes to the issue of European scrutiny.

Kelvin Hopkins: I support my hon. Friend strongly in congratulating the Leader of the House on accepting the amendment in the name of the Committee that my hon. Friend chairs, and of which I am a member. Does he not agree that a permanent member of a Standing Committee would take their responsibility more seriously than one who is added ad hoc at the last minute?

Michael Connarty: I certainly agree with that summation of the problem, and on the positive nature of being a permanent member of a Standing Committee. I came to the European Scrutiny Committee after acceding to a request from a Whip, a former good friend of mine who has sadly passed away, Gordon McMaster. He said that being a member of a Committee would be a way of gaining knowledge that was useful to a Member of Parliament. I do not think that he said that just because he was a Whip seeking members for Committees; it was also because he was a friend. We had known each other when we were in local government, when he was a leader in Renfrew, and I was a leader in Stirling. We understood that knowing the detail of business was the key to being a successful councillor and a successful Member of Parliament.
	In the three years between 1994 and 1997, I served on the European Standing Committee that dealt with agriculture, health and safety, and the environment. That broadened my knowledge of those subjects. I also found that practically every topic that we discussed was relevant to my constituents, because it would eventually have an impact on them. For example, the duties on riparian owners to clean up canals and waterways eventually led to a campaign, which we supported, to have the canals opened. That was a millennium project. The pollution of the Union canal caused by the Nobel munitions works was cleaned up under directives from Europe, so it is amazing how people could make Standing Committee work relevant to their local area. I agree entirely with that point.
	I commend the Deputy Leader of the House, who was asked by the Leader of the House to be involved in the process, and who has spoken with the Chief Whip, with me and with others to try to ensure progress on the major issue, which is what we can do to bring the Modernisation Committee's report to a final conclusion that will advance what we do.

Martin Horwood: I apologise for the fact that after I have asked the hon. Gentleman a question I will probably have to withdraw to attend a Westminster Hall debate. One of the most important issues addressed by the Modernisation Committee was that of the induction and welcome of new Members. Does he support addressing, through the channel that he described, two key issues? The first is the chaotic diversity of material with which new Members are presented, and the second is the chronic lack of offices; we had to suffer the lack of an office for many months in 2005. The situation was probably not even as bad as it had been previously. Would he support measures to tackle those archaic problems?

Michael Connarty: I thank the hon. Gentleman for raising that issue. In 1992, when I came to the House, I and four other Members were asked to go to the induction week for the new members of Congress in the United States of America. We spent a week at the John F. Kennedy school of government with those members, where they were trained in the relevance of their legislation to the budgetary headings on which they would eventually have to vote. We came back and made a recommendation. One of my hon. Friends was very keen on the idea that we should have a proper induction. There is no doubt that induction would and should take place on European issues.
	As a member of the European Scrutiny Committee—and even before I became its Chair—I have spent a lot of time visiting Departments that have requested that either I or a clerk explain how we do our business, how they can help us in our business, and how they can help their Minister better. I have done that for the Industry and Parliament Trust, and I am meeting representatives from the Belgian chamber of commerce next week to talk about European scrutiny and how we perform, and to try to make them understand how systems work in different areas. People realise that understanding the process of scrutiny makes scrutiny better. That echoes a point made strongly by my late good friend, Robin Cook, the former Foreign Secretary, who said that good scrutiny makes for good legislation, and bad scrutiny makes for bad legislation.

Richard Shepherd: That is an important point. In fact, it was considered by the Modernisation Committee under the leadership of its former chair, who is now Secretary of State for Justice. We were extremely sympathetic to it, and indeed the John F. Kennedy school of government programme for new members of Congress was referred to constantly. That point was transmitted, but it could not be put in any Standing Orders. We decided, in an abstract way, that it was a matter for the House authorities, or for the parties. Parties do not want to lose their control over such matters. However, the point is valid: we could provide real induction on business, so that new Members of Parliament understood the dimensions of the job, and were not funnelled into a particular course by either House authorities or parties, which feel that new Members should be mere soldiers on the green Back Benches.

Michael Connarty: I hear that heartfelt plea from the Back Benches and I am sympathetic to it. Having come from a position of prominence on the Scottish executive of my party and also having been the leader of a council for 10 years, coming to the House was a lesson in personal confidence destruction. As the hon. Member for Cheltenham (Martin Horwood) said, new Members come to the House, beg for a room or any sort of facilities, fumble around and, if they have a few friends, get some advice about how to survive in this place.
	I remember someone saying—jokingly, I think—that when he asked one of the most senior Members on the Conservative Back Benches for the best piece of advice about how to survive as a Member of Parliament at the time, the reply was, "Get a big car, my boy", on the basis that he could claim 76p per mile for driving around in it. That was probably good advice, but not necessarily the most relevant information for a new Member.
	I hope that serious consideration will be given to a programme of induction. We should set aside time to give new Members the kind of training that is given in the Congress. It is not right that parties should worry about whether that would make their Members less useful. They would just be better at their job.

Richard Shepherd: That is why the Modernisation Committee argued for a greater gap between an election and the convening of Parliament, to allow that process. In the United States there is a period of two months in which to organise such a programme, whereas we can be sworn in and sitting as Members of Parliament 12 days after an election.

Michael Connarty: I have every confidence that the Leader of the House, whom I have known for a long time, will have listened to that and will, hopefully, think about it in the run-up to an election, whenever it is called.

Peter Soulsby: Does my hon. Friend accept that a powerful case was made in Committee that it is not just a matter of the initial induction? Those of us who are comparatively new Members experienced quite a lot in a very short time. Some of us remarked, "Too much, too soon." There should be continuing development and continuing opportunities for Members to understand the business of the House and the ways in which they can usefully contribute to it, and to develop their skills, not just during that initial, very busy period.

Michael Connarty: My hon. Friend makes a good point. I know that he came from a distinguished career in local government in a much bigger authority than I was ever involved in, and he will have experienced the sudden vacuum of support and, at times, confusion that was described earlier.
	All the interventions are relevant, but I shall return to my own topic. The European Scrutiny Committee received a letter from the Deputy Leader of the House about our request. It will be noted by Members that on 8 October I raised the matter, after the right hon. Member for Wells (Mr. Heathcoat-Amory) raised the topic of the European Standing Committees not being collapsed once again. We then wrote to the Leader of the House. I know that she has been slightly indisposed, and I am glad that she is looking hale and hearty today on the Front Bench. I hope that her good health continues.
	We received a letter from the Deputy Leader of the House, which stated that
	"if the temporary arrangement is not renewed, the immediate effect would be that there are  no arrangements".
	That is entirely wrong. What would happen is that we would revert to Standing Order No. 119, which is quite clear. It states that there will be three Standing Committees, each having 13 permanent members, and that any Member of the House may attend and speak at a European Standing Committee, which is still the case.
	With regard to openness, although we might not meet in public, it is the right of any Member of the House to request to attend our Select Committee as an observer, and the Deputy Leader of the House took advantage of that provision this week. Any Member can come and watch the business that we are transacting. It is not a secret from the House, but the information given by the officials is privileged and that should not be breached by its being given to the public. That is why when we print the chapters of our report each week, we put in the explanatory memorandum in full, but we do not put in the advice given by the officials to our Committee. That is right and proper and allows us to do our business correctly.
	To stress what we have lost over the past two years, I point out that we had three Committees. European Standing Committee A dealt with Environment, Food and Rural Affairs; Transport, the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister, the Forestry Commission, and analogous responsibilities of the Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland Offices. European Standing Committee B dealt with the Treasury, including Customs and Excise, Work and Pensions, Foreign and Commonwealth Office, International Development, Home Office, Department for Constitutional Affairs, including those responsibilities of the Scotland and Wales Offices that fall to European Standing Committee A, together with any matters not otherwise allocated. European Standing Committee C dealt with Trade and Industry, Employment and Skills, Culture, Media and Sport, and Health.
	I have been out speaking to voluntary organisations throughout the country, who say, "Who do we speak to if some matter is coming through your Committee?" They cannot speak to members of the European Scrutiny Committee because we are not charged with the responsibility of discussing the merits of any proposal coming from Europe. We are charged with the responsibility of deciding whether something is politically and economically important. If it is considered important enough, after correspondence and evidence taking with Ministers, and we wish the House to be given the right to debate it, we request that it be considered on the Floor of the House or in a Standing Committee. We spoke earlier about the difficulties in getting Select Committee reports debated on the Floor of the House, and we respect the fact that this is a crowded period and a crowded agenda; indeed, the agenda will be even more crowded when we make room for topical issues. The Standing Committees are therefore vital. If they have a permanent membership, they will be the place where business, the voluntary sector or civic society can find a membership that is available to write to and can give information and try to influence their perspective, after which it is to be hoped that the merits of the issue would be discussed in the Standing Committees.

John Redwood: Is not the big problem with scrutiny of European matters in this House the fact that the emphasis is on scrutinising measures after they have been agreed in Brussels, when one can deal only with minor details of the transposition from Brussels directive to British law? What the House really wants is a proper debate prior to the making of the agreement, with a view to influencing the Minister, who may be able to influence partners in Brussels.

Michael Connarty: I am amazed. I have great respect for the right hon. Gentleman, but he is entirely wrong. A Minister cannot go to a Council and agree a proposal until it is out of scrutiny, and it will not be out of scrutiny until it has been debated. The reality is that the more effective we are in persuading our Ministers to respect that scrutiny, the more we will have a substantive debate in the Standing Committees.

Theresa May: rose—

Michael Connarty: I think that I can anticipate what the shadow Leader of the House will say.

Theresa May: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman, who is being generous in taking interventions.
	The hon. Gentleman will know as well as I do that there are numerous occasions on which Ministers do not observe that scrutiny reserve, but go to Brussels and take decisions before coming to the Scrutiny Committee with excuses as to why they were unable to meet it before they went to Brussels. My proposal to put the scrutiny reserve on a statutory basis would mean that they were unable to do that.

Michael Connarty: There have been many occasions in the past on which such things have happened. I can think of one Home Office Minister who behaved in such a way nine times in succession, but they were out of office very quickly. I do not know whether they left office for other reasons in their profile, or because they were taken to task and could not defend themselves before the Committee when we called for evidence from the Minister involved. The situation is improving, and it has improved year on year. I do not think that there are now many cases in which a Minister breaks the scrutiny reserve, apart from on a technical problem in respect of which there is an advantage to the UK in agreeing to a proposal, because holding it up would mean that it could not succeed in advancing its position correctly. I do not think that many people give anything away in the European Councils. One of my colleagues approached me recently to say that we needed to discuss many emerging issues on which it has been necessary to say again and again, "We cannot agree this because there is a scrutiny reserve on this matter in our House."
	I think that we have a good system. People often plead in favour of the Danish system. That system is so rigid that the Danish have found many strategies to get around it. Again and again, we have found that the Danish will persuade others to move on a matter requiring a qualified majority vote so that they can get the proposal through and then say, "It wasn't us who did it; it was someone else. We held our line, but it went through." Such a process can become a transparent sham, and we must not adopt such a rigid system. We have a persuasive process, and it can be beneficial as long as the people in the Ministries and the Cabinet Office enforce it strongly.
	I was trying to say how we collapsed the Committees because we could not report on the Modernisation Committee report. That was the wrong thing to do, because we have had two years of vacuum in which Members have been put on to the Committee on a random basis. I am told by a former Whip that it was called sharing the pain, instead of doing what they should have been doing, putting people on to the Committee to learn their trade—to learn how to do the job properly in relation to Europe and to understand how Europe works and what are regulations, directives and framework decisions. The issue is more imperative than ever, given that it looks as if the reform treaty will go through. It will shift the balance immensely, so we need to be much more aware—particularly of how to deal with the subsidiarity question, the yellow card and the orange card. People may be dragooned by the Whips, but if they do not understand, they will not be acting as parliamentarians on behalf of this Chamber.

John Bercow: On the principle that membership of the hon. Gentleman's Committee and others should be an opportunity not a punishment, does he agree that it is high time that we elected members of Select Committees?

Michael Connarty: I shall leave that hanging on the vine; it is of another vintage altogether.
	On the process that we are going through, we made some great suggestions and the Modernisation Committee responded well to some of them. I thank the Leader of the House and all her predecessors who have tried to deal with the issue; we have had many behind-the-scenes discussions in which there has been good will in respect of advancing and getting things right. We could do that if we had the will of the House to carry it forward. Three months is not such a short time, given that we are so near a conclusion. I would have been more radical; in fact, our Committee made a more radical suggestion to the Modernisation Committee than the one being progressed.
	Given the proliferation of other Select Committees mentioned in the report, it might be time to reduce the number of their members; that might make them much more focused and specific. We have always asked for five Standing Committees, to give a much more focused agenda; with five, there would be fewer sittings for each member and therefore less of a time burden on them, and there would be a more specific interest and knowledge base than at the moment.
	However, we are almost there. I thank the Leader of the House for accepting our amendment and hope that by the time the issue comes back to the House in three months' time, there will be something that we can all support.

Simon Hughes: I shall start by dealing with the matters mentioned by the hon. Member for Linlithgow and East Falkirk (Michael Connarty). I thank him for his work and that of his Committee. I support his and his colleagues' amendment, which the Leader of the House has accepted. I hope that we shall be able to accommodate the changes in the suggested period; I share his view that that should be possible.
	I also agree that now might be the time to look again at how we formulate our Select Committees. I absolutely take the view that they should be elected by this place in a democratic process, but that they should probably be smaller. There should be fewer Members on them, but those Members should view their role as a key function of their work. The corollary is that Select Committee reports should have a prompt and automatic slot for consideration.
	I understand the Leader of the House's response—there is a debate to be had on how to maximise the usefulness of Select Committee work. To me, it seems better that the report should be discussed more widely among parliamentarians before the Government formulate their final view; to put it bluntly, once the Government have a view, it is more difficult to shift it, for reasons that we all know about. The Leader of the House said that it might be better for the Government to formulate their view so that it could then be debated. I am fairly neutral on that; it is a discussion that we need to have.
	I am clear, however, that we need smaller Select Committees, although they should still be representative. One reason they have been big has been party political representation; clearly, they should still be representative of the House and political opinion. If they were elected by the House, we would take a much more effective step from the Norman St. John-Stevas proposals of the late 70s; we would really have a Parliament in which Select Committees played their full part.

John Bercow: Is the hon. Gentleman similarly agnostic on whether debates on Select Committee reports should always be held in Westminster Hall? Might not some provision be made for those debates to be held on the Floor of the House? I have said to the right hon. Members for Neath (Mr. Hain), for Ashfield (Mr. Hoon) and for Blackburn (Mr. Straw) that it is most unsatisfactory that year after year we have Adjournment debates on defence in the UK, defence in the world or Wales, simply because the Government have no other business to debate in the Chamber. Why not debate an important Select Committee report on the Floor of the House?

Simon Hughes: I am not agnostic on that question; I share the hon. Gentleman's view. When Select Committee reports are concluded there should be a review, probably monthly, whereby one sorts the sheep from the goats—the big issues from the smaller issues—and ensures that they are all debated. The debates on the large, important issues should be brought here, and the others should go to Westminster Hall. Sometimes, two or three reports could be debated on the same day, where appropriate. However, it was nonsensical that the other day we debated eight or nine Public Accounts Committee reports on subjects ranging from the financing of the Olympic games to NHS IT contracts. All the issues were debated, but rather hidden away in terms of the agenda.
	I would not argue against having a calendar so that people here and outside know when the key debates on certain issues are to be held. It was absurd that we had the statement on the pre-Budget report and the comprehensive spending review proposals but no debate afterwards, as happens with the Queen's Speech and the Budget. There were questions to the Chancellor, and that was it, yet we were discussing the Government's spending plans for the next three years. That should be debated and approved—there should be a vote at the end, as there is on the Budget, with the ability to amend it.
	We rightly have annual debates on the armed services divided between the Royal Navy, the Royal Air Force and the Army, but there are other matters that we should debate annually. There should be an annual debate on Welsh affairs, Scottish affairs and Northern Irish affairs, but that does not mean that there should not also be much more specific debates. I share the implied criticism of the hon. Member for Buckingham (John Bercow) that we have a nonsensical system whereby the Government are sometimes scrabbling around for business when there are so many important, substantive and hard-edged subjects that should come before the House.
	That is not meant to be a blast across the bows of the incoming Leader of the House, because she knows, I hope—I have already said it on many occasions since she has been in post and repeat it publicly—that I welcome her modernising tendencies and instincts in these areas. I am new in this post, as she is in hers, so this is my first opportunity to tackle this broad subject and pick up the matters that are on the agenda. I shall do so briefly, because people are keen that we do not overindulge ourselves.
	Let me, like the right hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs. May), put the principles on the table, because they must govern our response. For me, we need a stronger Parliament. I have heard many Ministers, including the Leader of the House, say that. The balance between the Executive and the legislature has gone wrong, and we have ended up with Parliament that has far too little say. The implication is that we have to reorder what we do and the balance between Government and Parliament. We will never get that right, or as right as we are able to, unless we have a representative Parliament. Parliament is not yet representative in two fundamental ways: it is not representative in terms of gender balance, as the Lord Chancellor said today, or in terms of ethnic mix. That diminishes our opportunity to be a forum for the nation. Moreover, it is not politically representative because of our electoral system. I am confident that that will change. That does not mean that I am an unqualified supporter of going straight to a multi-member-seat solution—that would not get through this place, in my view—but we could have a representative Parliament without endorsing a system that loses the important link with constituencies. Roy Jenkins came up with such a proposal.
	Today, we have discussed—the Leader of the House and the Lord Chancellor referred to it—how we ensure, as we must, that people participate more in democracy by being on the electoral roll and wanting to engage by voting; and their vote must not be discounted, as far too many were in Scotland.
	We also need a much more participative Parliament. The fact that on so many occasions so few Members are here is not a tribute to a good system. There are some good points in the modernisation proposals that will address that. With shorter debates of 90 minutes on topical subjects, with shorter speeches, and with Members knowing that they are likely to be called, more Members will attend. Topical debates and questions will bring more Members into the Chamber. I commend many of the Committee's proposals. I am referred to on the Order Paper today as someone who has been nominated as a member of the Committee, on which I have not served before. I will be very happy to take part in its work— [ Laughter. ] I will be happy to do so if that is the will of the House.
	I pay tribute to ideas for which I can take no responsibility or claim no credit. There are some very good ones, and I am sure that they will increase activity in the Chamber and Westminster Hall. Therefore, I and my colleagues accept the proposals; they are a positive way forward.

John Redwood: Why does the hon. Gentleman think that, in the last election, more than twice as many people did not vote as voted Labour, and more than three times as many people did not vote as voted Liberal Democrat? Given that we know that PR elections lower turnout, what would he do about voters who do not like any political party?

Simon Hughes: I will be careful not to go off piste, as it were, into a debate about electoral reform, because I was trying to put my remarks in the context of what happens in this place. One of the things that lead people not to vote is that we often hold elections for different things on the same day.

Harriet Harman: That increases turnout.

Simon Hughes: But in the end it means that people do not know the difference between different tiers of government and what they do. They become less well informed and vote for the wrong reasons.
	We are in a country where people think that voting does not change anything because they feel that Government, once in office, do not listen, that Parliament rarely defeats the Government and that people are too subject to the Whips once here. As a Front Bencher, I say that it should be perfectly acceptable for the Government to be defeated on something. Unless it is a major issue of the Budget or a key proposal in the Queen's Speech, that should be a normal part of the course of events.
	I am keen that, other than party manifesto commitments on which we stand for election, all the small print of secondary details of legislation and the many other things that the Government often introduce half way through a Bill should not be whipped. We should be able to form an independent view on them. If Members from all parties thought that we were free to take our own view and argue it—other than on matters on which we clearly stood for election—there would be much more interest and people would vote. I see the right hon. Member for Wokingham (Mr. Redwood) nodding. I am clear on this matter; people often think that they are voting for ciphers, who are sent here to do the will of their party leadership. That is not acceptable.
	The other principle that the right hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs. May) hinted at, and I want to underscore, is that we are moving from Government deciding the business of the House of Commons to the House deciding its own business. I realise that the Government will be reluctant to let go, but we should decide our business, and we can then negotiate how the Government get their business into a timetable.

Richard Shepherd: Where is that in the Standing Orders in front of the House? We all say, "Hallelujah" to that principle, but the Government reign.

Simon Hughes: That is my point exactly. The change is not here yet. The amendments to Standing Orders are welcome as far as they go, but there are many others that I would wish to see. The matter should be decided by a business Committee of the House, rather than a timetable determining when we take particular parts of business. The Government would have to negotiate, based on how many Bills they needed, how long they would take, and so on. Such a change would also, I hope, address the issue of the calendar. I am clear about that: it is nonsense. It is another small point, in reply to the intervention of the right hon. Member for Wokingham, that makes us less heeded and people less interested.
	People live their lives according to cycles. A family with children knows that the schools year begins in September and ends in July in England or a bit earlier in Scotland. Business people work to a tax year and others work to a chronological year. We work to a ridiculous timetable, whereby we start—possibly—in November; we have holidays that do not fit family life in all parts of the UK equally, in that if they fit English school holidays they do not fit Scottish school holidays; we used to come back in September but now we do not; we attend party conferences, after which we return for an uncertain period, and then we have a week's recess between Sessions. That is nonsense.
	We must be able to organise our timetable not only for us and the benefit of those who work here, but for all those who want to inform us and participate, so that we work when they work. They can thus plan their lives and there is a legislative sequence to events. It would therefore be logical to have fixed-term Parliaments. I am not theological about that, but, on balance, I believe that they are a good idea, not only for us but for the certainty of the public, local government, people whom Parliament funds through its votes, the civil service, people involved in political parties and those who are interested in voluntary sector organisations. Having certainty in such matters would help induce people's participation in the process and perhaps make them more willing to stand for election because they would know what they were letting themselves in for.

John Bercow: I agree with the hon. Gentleman, but may I politely put it to him that the proposal for establishing a business Committee to run the affairs of the House, with which I concur, needs to be made intelligible to people outwith the House who will be interested in our proceedings? Will the hon. Gentleman take the opportunity to underline the fact that, at the moment, the content of the agenda for the House and the allocation of time for it are almost exclusively in the Government's gift? It is unsatisfactory and an independent-minded business committee could effectively change that.

Simon Hughes: I agree. The hon. Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Mr. Shepherd) made the point in similar terms. It would be well understood if we put our case clearly that there would be a transfer so that decisions about the business would be made by an independent group of people, representative of all the parties. Of course, there would be party interest in one sense, but Parliament, not the Executive, would make the decisions.
	If Parliament took control of the selection of its Select Committees, people would start to perceive it as earning its keep. As the Leader of the House and her predecessor, the right hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr. Straw), said today, the better the scrutiny, the stronger the legislature and the better the decisions.
	The Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill had its Second Reading the other day and is subject to carry-over. That is nonsense because the measure has been introduced in one Session and the Government will amend it significantly in the next. We have suffered terribly from far too much legislation—quantity rather than quality. Of course, I appreciate that there is always pressure on the Government to introduce new legislation. However, the Home Office agenda shows that it has often legislated, repented of and had to undo its legislation. A few years ago, I discussed that matter in Finland, a unicameral Parliament, where the Government introduce draft legislation. That is considered and, if colleagues in the Parliament believe that it is not appropriate or that it has been covered already, there is often much movement. The Government often decide not to introduce part of the measure because they realise that they introduced similar provisions five years ago and that they need time to bed down.
	If we are to do our job properly here, we must be able to persuade the Government to legislate less and do it more rationally and more for the long-term. Again, fixed-term Parliaments will help with that because the Government know how long they have and can plan their programme accordingly.
	If we are to have a stronger Parliament and do our job better, there is a logic to having a smaller Executive. It is nonsensical that, because of the way in which the constitution has grown, the Executive and Parliament are not completely separated. They are partly separated, but partly together. Whenever a vote takes place, the approximately 100 Ministers and the perhaps 50 Parliamentary Private Secretaries—they are ballpark figures—who are on the payroll are spoken for. The reality is that the chance of Parliament being able to make a decision separate from the Executive is tiny. Of course I am not arguing that the Government should be entirely separate from the system—a bit like the French Parliament, where as soon as Members become Ministers they give up their seats—but we need to think about the issue. After devolution to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland—and, I hope, further devolution—we do not need a bigger Executive; we need a smaller Executive, which will be more effective, too.
	Just three last points— [ Interruption. ] They are very short, and I hope that I am coming in well short of the time that the Leader of the House and the shadow Leader of the House took. I am not against the proposed Regional Select Committees, but they are no answer to the English question. I am clear that we have not addressed the English question in Parliament, and it will not go away, nor should it. We need to work out how we can have proper accountability and scrutiny of England-only business, just as there is now better scrutiny in other places of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland business.
	Penultimately, there is a set of proposals, albeit not really on the agenda, from the Power report about the right of other people to initiate legislation and petitions. I welcome what is proposed on legislation and petitions as far as it goes, but we still do not give Back Benchers enough opportunity to initiate legislation. The opportunity for non-Government legislation to get through Parliament is extremely limited. That is partly because the Whips object, because it might take up time. However, if Parliament is going to be credible out there and, to answer the question that the right hon. Member for Wokingham asked, if people are going to think that it is worth voting, they have to know that he, his right hon. Friend, the shadow Leader of the House, I or other hon. Members can introduce legislation that has a chance of getting through.
	A small postscript: I notice that Mr. Speaker has selected an amendment about whether we should use hand-held electronic devices in here to multitask, as the relevant section in the report puts it. Were the amendment put to the vote, I would vote for it. If we manage our affairs and are in this place for a shorter time, we cannot do what people increasingly do, which is to try to pretend that they are in one meeting when they are actually having one somewhere else. I am not a luddite or anti-technology—of course we all see the advantages of being able to receive messages—but we should not have a Parliament in which people are spending all their time doing their correspondence and sending e-mails. Hon. Members either come here to participate, debate, engage and listen, or they do not. I do not know whether anyone will move that amendment—some of its signatories are here—but if they do, they will have my support. Whether they do or not, I hope that Mr. Speaker will be rigorous in ensuring that we do not end up with a system where half the Members here might as well be in their offices, because all they are doing is playing with their electronic devices.
	The world is plagued with more and more people with whom one cannot have a conversation, because they spend all their time looking at some blessed machine in their hand. There is time for machines, and there is time for conversation and debate. This should be a place for debate and better scrutiny, in a stronger Parliament. I hope that the measures before us are only the beginning of a radical programme of reform. If the Leader of the House can lead it, she will be supported on these Benches.

Kevan Jones: The one thing missing from today's measures is a proposal to put time limits on speeches and contributions by the hon. Member for North Southwark and Bermondsey (Simon Hughes). We had to sit through his huge contributions on the Legal Services Bill Committee and were relieved when he was replaced by the hon. Member for Somerton and Frome (Mr. Heath), who made good points but in much less time.
	The name "Modernisation Committee" always makes me smile, because if we were anywhere else, we would get done under the Trade Descriptions Act. Quite clearly, we are just playing around at the edges of reform, while many people out in the country do not understand some of the archaic ways in which we still operate.
	I welcome the proposals for more topical debates. I had to chuckle, however, when I read that the main thrust behind the proposals was strengthening the role of Back Benchers. Naturally, I am greatly in favour of that, but if we are going to have more topical debates, we also need a system whereby Back Benchers can determine what those debates should be about. I agree with earlier comments that if we leave it to the Government to pick and choose through the usual channels, Back Benchers are unlikely to get the topical debates that they want.

Richard Shepherd: The hon. Gentleman talks about Back Benchers determining debates, but they will not. Debates will be determined by the Leader of the House.

Kevan Jones: I am very concerned. The hon. Gentleman, whom I love dearly, usually follows debates very carefully, but I am now starting to think that he may be in need of some kind of hearing device. I was making precisely the point that he raised. I was arguing that Back Benchers should determine the content of debates, so that we can have more topical debates that are more relevant to our constituents, while also holding the Executive to account.
	I agree with some of the more general arguments made about debates and I thought that the right hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs. May) made a very good point in saying that we looked at legislation too readily in departmental silos. Many current issues cut across several Departments. Looking at this place from outside, many would not understand that approach.
	I am sorry to say that regional Select Committees are not featured in these proposals. There are outstanding problems in the scrutiny of a whole host of agencies—this certainly applies in my north-east region—such as regional development agencies, the Environment Agency and the Highways Agency, to name but a few. No one is actually looking into what they are doing. Before the north-east regional assembly was thrown out, we faced for a while the ludicrous position of having an unelected regional assembly. Its scrutiny of those agencies was frankly farcical, yet it cost the taxpayer £2 million a year. I actually welcomed the abolition, but it has now left a gap. If I were a regional civil servant on one of these quangos, I would be breathing a great sigh of relief that no one was looking into what I was doing.
	When the idea of regional Select Committees was first announced, it was welcomed in all sectors. I know from talking to colleagues in different parts of the north-east that they saw it as an opportunity to scrutinise some of the bodies that exert a huge impact on the daily lives of our constituents but on which we Back Benchers or elected MPs can exert little impact. One good example is the regional spatial strategy.

Greg Knight: Will the hon. Gentleman tell us what type of regional Committee he supports? Does he support a Grand Committee-type arrangement in which every Member from a region is entitled to attend, or does he feel that only some Members from a region should be entitled to do so, or does he support a gerrymandered system whereby every regional Select Committee has a Government majority?

Kevan Jones: I will come on to that in a minute, if the right hon. Gentleman will indulge me.
	The regional spatial strategy, as I was saying, is a good example. I have on previous occasions referred to a soviet-style planning system, which has blighted many constituencies, including my own, in respect of housing numbers, yet there has been no mechanism for me to engage with the problem as a Back-Bench MP. If regional groups of civil servants and others are coming together to take decisions affecting thousands of our constituents' lives, there must be a mechanism for us to get involved on behalf of those constituents. At present, there is no such mechanism.
	I do not support the idea of a Grand Committee. I think that the civil servants and regional quangocrats would love it, because it would be no more than a talking shop, but I would like a Select Committee for each region that could hold the regional Ministers to account and ask for independent reports on the various agencies, as well as preparing its own reports.
	The right hon. Member for East Yorkshire (Mr. Knight) claimed that the new Committees would be gerrymandered. I would like a continuation of the present system, which allows Opposition Members to chair Select Committees. Obviously, in some areas the new Committees would not have Labour Chairmen, but the Defence Committee, of which I am a member, works perfectly well under the chairmanship of the right hon. Member for East Hampshire (Mr. Mates), who is a Conservative.

Simon Hughes: Would the hon. Gentleman support a system whereby Committees represented the political make-up of their regions?

Kevan Jones: Yes, I would. If there is to be genuine accountability, elected Members of Parliament must be given a key role, and if the system works properly, it will not only ensure that the unelected and unaccountable people who currently make huge decisions are brought to book but will give a role to MPs.
	My hon. Friend the Member for Leicester, South (Sir Peter Soulsby) mentioned funding. I have heard the argument before that the Committees would cost money, and that that should be a reason for us not to establish them. I am sorry, but I do not agree. If it is a question of funds, we should make them available to support the new Committees.
	It has been said that the Select Committee idea has been kicked into the long grass. I hope that that is not true. I shall be supporting it vigorously, and I know that Labour Members from my region would be very annoyed if all that we had was a sort of Grand Committee talking shop that did not do the effective job that we—along with many members of the public sector, the business community and others in the north-east—want it to do.

John Redwood: The south-east has a Conservative majority. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that if we decided that we did not want one of these things—if we wanted to get rid of a number of regional quangos, and give the power to local government where necessary—we should be able to do that?

Kevan Jones: No. As the right hon. Gentleman well knows, that would not be the role of a Select Committee. Its role would be to hold the quangos to account. That is a key point.
	I have been a member of the Defence Committee for six years, and I agree that we need a system whereby reports are discussed not just in Westminster Hall but on the Floor of the House. It was said earlier that the reports would require Government responses so that there could be full debates on them. I am happy with that idea, but I believe that much good work is being done in Select Committees. The Defence Committee, for example, recently produced an excellent report on accommodation for the armed forces—a topical issue, some would say. In the last couple of weeks we have had two defence debates, on defence in the world and on procurement, but it would have been better for us to have a debate about that one report.
	The Defence Committee produces yearly reports on both Iraq and Afghanistan. Those, too, are good reports, which the House should debate rather than holding generic debates that do not really go anywhere. The Committee also produces an annual procurement report. The way in which all Governments deal with procurement has always been a great scandal. If our annual report were discussed in the Chamber, not only would Members be helped to understand the process but civil servants and others who make decisions would know that those decisions would be exposed to debate on the Floor of the House.
	The proposals are welcome. Someone referred to himself earlier as an über-moderniser. To get that title, we are going to have to go a long way further, but it is a start.

Brian Binley: I welcome the comments of the hon. Member for North Southwark and Bermondsey (Simon Hughes). I was delighted to hear of his support. I hope that his party might follow him if there is a Division on the matter. That would be helpful.
	I am pleased to support the amendment that is in the name of my hon. Friends the Members for Macclesfield (Sir Nicholas Winterton), for Congleton (Ann Winterton), for Aldridge-Brownhills (Mr. Shepherd) and for Shipley (Philip Davies). They apologise for not being able to be in the House. They are on other parliamentary business.

Greg Knight: One of them is here.

Brian Binley: I thank my right hon. Friend for pointing that out. I am sure that he will be used more effectively talking on the wider issues, rather than on the amendment. I am delighted to be able to help him to do that.
	Let me read the amendment so that the House and those beyond understand what it is about. It proposes that the following words be added to the end of line 5:
	"but excluding the proposed acceptance of the Committee's recommendation 35, as set out in paragraph 31 of the Government's response, that the use of handheld devices to keep up to date with emails should be permitted in the Chamber."
	We reject that recommendation totally. I remember when I was a young lad—I am sure that you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, will have similar memories—going to the cinema and watching western films. Some of the better films, including ones starring Gene Autry and Roy Rogers—I hope that I am bringing nostalgia back for you—showed saloons that stopped people at the swinging doors and asked that they left their guns at the doors. I wish that the Government had taken notice of that particular habit and asked all Members to leave their electrical devices at the door of this Chamber, on the basis that they could cause almost as much trouble as guns in the hands of cowboys in the old west.
	Let me read the recommendation. It is on multi-tasking. It says:
	"Removing barriers to participation is important and the use of handheld devices to keep up to date with e-mails should be permitted in the Chamber provided that it causes no disturbance."
	I have rarely seen a hand-held device that did not cause disturbance. People forget to turn them off and the things go off inadvertently—we heard of a case of that earlier. Indeed, I have been guilty of the same crime and you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, were kind enough to recognise that I was a new Member and treated me with great gentleness.

Peter Soulsby: May I suggest that the hon. Gentleman cannot be particularly observant? Were he to have been more observant, he would have noticed on many occasions Members, no doubt with the Speaker or Deputy Speaker turning a blind eye, using such hand-held devices in the Chamber. Indeed I saw a prominent member of his own Front-Bench team using such a device comparatively recently. During an earlier debate, one Front-Bench Member was using one for a good 10 minutes. They were doing so discreetly and caused no disturbance to anyone. Indeed, they did so without the hon. Gentleman noticing.

Brian Binley: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for that comment. I will refer to it a little later because I think that he is absolutely wrong in his assertion that the devices do not disturb. Not only do they disturb, but on occasions they stop participation. That is the point. What is this Chamber for? Is it for Members to participate, or is it for them to come here in a rather ad hoc fashion to do their homework, or to answer correspondence?

Stewart Jackson: Does my hon. Friend agree that our constituents will be astonished if the amendment is defeated? Given that we receive unprecedented financial support for secretarial and administrative help, there will be astonishment that hon. Members cannot organise their time appropriately so that they do not have to be checking e-mails when they should be holding the Executive to account, doing their job properly, listening and participating in important debates in this House?

Brian Binley: That is the very point that I will make for the next three or four minutes—only for that long, I hope, in view of the fact that others wish to speak.

John Redwood: Does my hon. Friend think that the Government may have an ulterior motive? Perhaps what they have in mind are controllers outside this House who will watch debates and send messages through to those who cannot think of their own interventions and questions because they want to stage-manage rather more.

Brian Binley: My right hon. Friend has immense experience and is hinting that that may already have happened. Pagers have been used to give people hints on how to speak as well as act. That is not what this Chamber should be about.
	The Committee's advice on multi-tasking related to more effective participation. It suggested that Members had called for the use of hand-held instruments and electronic instruments because it might make them more
	"willing to spend time in the Chamber... if they were able to do other work at the same time, either dealing with correspondence or perhaps even using a handheld computer or laptop to deal with e-mails."
	Is that the purpose of the Chamber? Much of the massive Palace of Westminster is taken up with offices, yet we want to turn this place into an extension of those offices. That is nonsense.

Simon Hughes: There is all the difference in the world between getting a message, which has been permitted for a long time by using fairly antediluvian pagers, and communicating by e-mail. It would be unreasonable to suggest that people could not continue to get a message. That is different from spending our time communicating electronically when we should be here concentrating.

Brian Binley: As I understand it, we have always received messages, normally in note form. It is important that that should continue. But should we really have the ability to have conversations with others outside when the prime objective of the Chamber is to be the debating centre of the nation? Do we really want television viewers seeing rows of people acting like secretaries in early 1950s films; great rows of MPs all bashing away on laptops? Is that what the Chamber is about? My argument will be that it is not. This is the debating Chamber of the nation and people should come to take part in that process, not be involved in so-called multi-tasking. How widely does multi-tasking extend?

Kevan Jones: I am really enjoying the hon. Gentleman's contribution. For someone elected in 2005, he gives the impression that he has been here a long time. It is refreshing that the Conservative party can still select individuals such as him. Does he agree that we are not talking about a row of secretaries? The mind boggles at the thought of the hon. Gentleman sitting with a typewriter anywhere.

Brian Binley: My mind boggles too, Mr. Deputy Speaker, which is why I hope that you will support the amendment to ensure that that does not happen. May I also thank you for your kindness? You have been kind since I came to this place. Bringing a little wisdom and experience is not a bad thing. It seems that you are supporting even more of my ilk—

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman is addressing the Chair, but none of those things can be true of me in these circumstances.

Brian Binley: I understand totally, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Let us get back to the business of what this House is about.
	We are talking about electronic devices not disturbing people. I have seen occasions when such devices have vibrated in people's pockets and the people vibrate as a result. Up they jump, and they fiddle about, putting hands in one pocket after another until they find their electronic device, by which time, Mr. Deputy Speaker is glaring at them and the whole House is looking at them. If that does not disturb and break up concentration, I do not know what does.
	Furthermore, hand-held devices are becoming more all-purpose. They were initially simply telephones, but they are now mini-computers, providing the ability not only to communicate, as I have said, but to record, to take photographs and even to take video film. How does anybody distinguish between someone simply looking at an e-mail and their being involved in those particular activities? I put it to hon. Members that they would not want to have a video camera, under the guise of a telephone, pointed at them in some of their quieter, slightly more relaxed moments, and for the recording to be repeated and distributed on a cheap compact disc during an election in their constituencies. Such activity might arise if we were to be so lax as to allow hand-held devices in here. We should all be careful about that particular ability and about the growth in the functions of hand-held devices. They are contained in a small package and cover a number of activities, many of which we would not wish to see in action in this House. I maintain that we would not be able to stop such activities once such devices were able to be used on a permanent basis.
	May I conclude by making the point that this Chamber is, as I have said before, about the debating of issues on behalf of the nation? It is a representative Chamber; indeed, we have a representative democracy. That is the very description of the parliamentary democracy in which we work. I want to ensure that this place remains at the heart of that process, as a debating Chamber. I want it to be more widely viewed by the people of the nation. I also want them to be able to be more involved with their Members of Parliament—their representatives—in the argument, but that should not occur when we are in the Chamber.
	This Chamber is where the elected representatives of Parliament make their points. They do so not as delegates or as members of a political party primarily, but as the elected representatives of the people of their constituency. They are chosen because they are deemed to have wisdom and experience which, if they use it independently, can make a worthwhile contribution to this place. I do not want a situation in which every time somebody wonders what he has to say, he looks at a hand-held telephone, or every time a Whip thinks that something is going wrong, they put a message through and 25 Labour or 25 Conservative Members then look at it and act differently.
	Such situations concern me immensely, but I certainly do not want an opportunity for us to be filmed without our knowledge. I am not talking about the official process of filming, but about hand-held videos that are so small that one cannot tell the difference between them and a telephone. For that reason, I want all these instruments stopped at the Door. I want to take a lesson from the wild west: do not have pistols in saloons because they are dangerous; do not have electronic devices in the Chamber because they could be equally dangerous.

Peter Soulsby: I hesitate to follow the authentic voice of the luddite tendency, but I feel provoked to respond to some of the points made by the hon. Member for Northampton, South (Mr. Binley).
	The Modernisation Committee's recommendations are very modest, especially where they deal with the use of modern technology by hon. Members in this Chamber. It is not suggested that hon. Members should be able to bring in their desktop PCs, or even their laptops, but that they be permitted to do what many already do while Mr. Speaker and the Deputy Speakers turn a blind eye.
	Therefore, I repeat what I said in an intervention on the previous speaker. I shall not embarrass anyone, but on two occasions in this debate I have noticed two Members on the Opposition Front Bench using such devices. I mention them only as an example, as they used them discreetly and appropriately, and caused no trouble or disturbance at all to those around them. It is quite clear that they were multi-tasking, as described in the report, and keeping in touch with the world outside.
	I suggest that hon. Members who come into this Chamber should not turn their backs on the modern world and the communications systems that are used in it. I believe that it is perfectly appropriate for hon. Members to be permitted, openly and overtly, to continue to do what many do already—that is, to use such devices in a discreet and appropriate way in this Chamber. If this matter comes to a vote, I very much hope that the House will reject overwhelmingly the calls from what I have described as the luddite tendency that we turn our backs on the appropriate use of modern communication technology.
	I want to make only two other points arising from the debate. First, I echo what my hon. Friend the Member for North Durham (Mr. Jones) said about the excitement that many of us felt at the prospect of regional Select Committees. He gave examples of the bodies that exist already at regional level for which there is no adequate mechanism for accountability. Their numbers are legion, and they exist in every region of the country. A very significant accountability gap exists, and the proposals for regional Ministers and associated regional Select Committees are an attempt to address that problem.
	As I did in an earlier intervention, I want to encourage the Leader of the House not to be discouraged by the very understandable concerns that have been expressed about the resource implications of regional Select Committees. I hope that she will recognise that they would fill that very significant accountability gap, but that they would need to have the necessary resources behind them.
	I also agree with another point made by my hon. Friend the Member for North Durham—that regional Grand Committees would be a poor substitute for regional Select Committees. With only a small number of members, regional Select Committees would be clearly focused and well resourced, and able to hold to account the multitude of regional bodies that at present are not properly accountable to this House.
	My final point has to do with the Modernisation Committee's proposals for topical debates, as reflected in the very welcome measures brought forward today by the Leader of the House. I understand the arguments made by various hon. Members today that the subjects for those debates should be chosen by ballot and, superficially at least, there is much to be said for that approach. However, the Modernisation Committee considered the matter carefully and ultimately concluded that the proposal that the selection should be made effectively by the Leader of the House, in consultation with the usual channels on both sides, was an appropriate mechanism.
	Initially, that mechanism would be employed for an experimental period. The House would be able to see how it was working but, as has been noted, other mechanisms would be put in place to ensure that the Leader of the House reported on the subjects proposed to her, and that she was held accountable for the selections that she made. The suggestion that a ballot be used for that purpose was rejected because of the nature of the debates that it is hoped will take place under the proposal.

Richard Shepherd: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman—a distinguished member of the Modernisation Committee—for giving way. Although there was a vote on the proposal in the Committee, does not he think it was determined by those who owed loyalties elsewhere? The Committee is stuffed with Parliamentary Private Secretaries, former deputy Chief Whips and representatives of the Executive, so the two vital individuals who voted for a ballot were excluded. That is not careful consideration—it is the might of the majority.

Peter Soulsby: I assure the hon. Gentleman that he and the colleague to whom he referred are not the only members of the Committee who can think for themselves. I and a number of others can do that, too, and we gave careful consideration to what initially seemed an attractive option. However, given that the subjects for topical debates are to be matters of
	"regional, national or international importance",
	we concluded that the proposed mechanism would ensure that was the case—and if it does not, the House will have the opportunity to reconsider the process.

John Bercow: Notwithstanding the savage ad hominem attack of my hon. Friend the Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Mr. Shepherd) on our right hon. Friend the Member for East Yorkshire (Mr. Knight), and the comments of the hon. Member for Leicester, South (Sir Peter Soulsby) about people having a mind of their own and being willing to express their opinions, I put it to him in all seriousness that it is not simply a question of Members being independent: for the sake of the name of our democracy, it is important that they should be seen to be independent. Therein lies the problem in having Parliamentary Private Secretaries who palpably owe loyalty to the Government, upon whose payroll they sit, also sitting on the Modernisation Committee. Never the twain shall meet, I suggest to the hon. Gentleman.

Peter Soulsby: I suspect that if I pursue the hon. Gentleman's suggestion at the length he invites me to do, Mr. Deputy Speaker, you would pull me up short and suggest that it was not something for debate this afternoon.
	The proposals made by the Leader of the House in response to the Modernisation Committee are important steps to re-empower Back Benchers and reinvigorate the Chamber, although no doubt many Members want further steps to be taken. However, although we may want to go further in future, that should not prevent us from supporting the proposals today.

Greg Knight: It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Leicester, South (Sir Peter Soulsby). He and I started our political careers about 30 years ago, sitting on opposite sides of the Leicester city council chamber. It is still a pleasure to be sitting opposite him.
	I agreed with most of the hon. Gentleman's comments, although I did not agree with his description of my hon. Friend the Member for Northampton, South (Mr. Binley) as a luddite. I would put it differently. My hon. Friend alluded to the film industry to demonstrate his point; if he were a film mogul, he would probably be the chairman of Nineteenth Century Fox.
	I thank the Leader of the House for providing time for the debate. This is important business, dealing with reports from the Modernisation Committee, of which I am a member, and the Procedure Committee, which I chair. It will come as no surprise to the House when I say that I want to focus primarily on the Procedure Committee's report. I thank its members, of all parties, for giving up their time to serve on one of the least glamorous but nevertheless key Committees of the House.
	The Leader of the House said that she wanted more plain language to be used in our Standing Orders. I can reveal to the House that the issue is on the agenda for future meetings of the Procedure Committee, and we shall look at it in depth.
	The Procedure Committee report on early-day motions and petitions was published on 22 May, and brought together two inquiries, during which the Committee took evidence from Members and House officials. We visited the Scottish Parliament to look at its petition system, and held discussions with officials responsible for administering the No. 10 e-petitions website.
	May I start by making a few remarks about early-day motions? They are often criticised. Members claim that there are too many of them and that many are trivial and tabled on unsuitable matters for debate. It is said that some are initiated by outside bodies and pressure groups. A number of Members told the Committee that they took the view that early-day motions were parliamentary graffiti. However, early-day motions actually allow Members to do several things that they could not otherwise do. They are an extremely flexible parliamentary procedure. They can draw attention to an issue that affects a single community, or even a single individual. They can also form part of an important regional or national campaign. Their popularity is evidence of their success and usefulness. The Procedure Committee was not persuaded that there were good grounds for limiting their number or scope. We believed that the disadvantages of imposing a new restriction, especially to individual Back Benchers, would outweigh the benefits.
	The Committee went on to consider whether there should be a mechanism to allow some early-day motions to be debated. Of course, many early-day motions are not intended to be for debate, but are used for other purposes, such as to call attention to the work of a body—often a local charity—or individual. If some early-day motions were to be eligible for debate, it would be necessary to distinguish between those that were debatable and non-debatable.
	There are various ways in which debatable early-day motions could be chosen for debate, but the Committee concluded that they all had disadvantages. The most popular suggestion was that the number of signatures received by an early-day motion should be the trigger for a debate. However, as someone who has served in the Whips Office, I am well aware that if we were to introduce such a rule, right hon. and hon. Members would be put under pressure not so much by the public, but each party's Whips Office, to sign a motion that was embarrassing to the party on the other side of the House and thus trigger a debate on the Floor. Such a system would permanently exclude minority parties from the opportunity of having an early-day motion debated. A large number of early-day motions that attract support from hon. Members on both sides of the House are those with which it is difficult to disagree, which would thus be unlikely to give rise to a lively or worthwhile debate.
	A further suggestion was a ballot of early-day motions, but that would lead to the tabling of multiple early-day motions on the same subject in the hope that they would be chosen for debate. Unless early-day motions were regularly weeded to exclude those that were no longer topical or had been overtaken by events, there would be a risk that the early-day motions chosen would no longer be suitable for debate.
	We were then asked why, if there was to be a ballot, there should not be a ballot of Members rather than early-day motions. If that were the case, there would be no need to link the ballot to early-day motions at all, because Members should be free to select the subject of their choice. As many hon. Members will know, we used to have a ballot to select debates on private Members' motions before they were abolished in 1994. My Committee recognises the strength of the argument that the abolition in 1994 was a mistake.
	It is a weakness of Parliament that a Back-Bench Member has no opportunity to initiate a debate on a substantive motion. We are one of the few Parliaments in the western world in which such a facility is not available. The Committee's report thus urged the Modernisation Committee to give serious consideration to recommending the reintroduction of an opportunity for Members to ballot for a motion of their choice. Indeed, it was largely at my behest that the Modernisation Committee went on to recommend that there should be an experiment, with such motions chosen by ballot being considered in Westminster Hall. However, for the moment at least, the Government have rejected that recommendation. I hope that the Leader of the House will be willing to keep her decision on the matter under review because Back-Bench Members of Parliament should be given the right to seek a debate on a substantive motion of their choice.
	Moving on to petitions, the Procedure Committee inquiry was limited to public petitions, so we did not consider the procedures for petitions in respect of private or hybrid Bills, such as the Crossrail Bill, which of course are very different. We decided to look at the current position. A number of Members of the House told us at the outset that they find the current procedures for public petitions totally unsatisfactory. Some argued that once a petition was presented, it seemed to fall into a black hole. Nothing more was heard of it, and there was no feedback to the petitioners.
	We looked at the evidence and found that although the Government do respond to most petitions, there is no obligation for them to do so. We discovered that well over 20 per cent. of petitions presented to the House do not receive a response from a Department. Of those that do, some of the responses were cursory and unhelpful. They often simply restated the Government's known position, adding nothing new. Many of them did not even answer the specific point that the petitioners were making.
	Of course, any response is provided to the Member who presented the petition. It is up to him or her to pass it on to the petitioners. Petitions and Government responses to them are published once a week in a supplement to Votes and Proceedings—and those supplements must be strong contenders for the title of the House's most obscure publication. They are hard to find on the parliamentary website, and there is no effective way of searching for specific petitions, or Government responses to them. My Committee unanimously took the view that that is not good enough. Since 2005, following a recommendation of the Procedure Committee in the previous Parliament, all petitions have been forwarded to the relevant departmental Select Committee, but as we note in our report, informal surveys that we carried out showed that most Select Committees have rarely taken any action as a result of receiving a petition.
	On the other hand, the system does have its strengths. All our witnesses—and, ultimately, all members of the Committee—agreed that having a Member of Parliament formally present the petition was an indispensable part of the system, which should not be lost. Members often advise the public on how to prepare their petition. Indeed, they may on some occasions steer a constituent away from the petition route if they feel that there are better ways for the person to pursue their objective. We felt that the requirement to find a Member to present a petition was useful and should be kept. Members can also act as a filter for trivial or inappropriate petitions.
	As for our proposals, we took the view that it is far better to build on the strength of the current system than to recommend a totally new system. In our report, we suggested how to remove some of the weaknesses of our procedures. Our proposals are as follows. We propose that the Government be required to respond formally to all petitions within two months of their presentation. It was the view of the Procedure Committee that every petitioner should ultimately get an answer to their petition. The text of petitions and Government responses should be published in  Hansard, and on a Friday, the time of the formal presentation of a petition should be moved to just before the end of the day—just before the Adjournment debate; that is when they are presented on other days. Access to petitions through the parliamentary website should be made easier, and there should be opportunities for petitions to be debated in Westminster Hall.
	The Government have accepted all those recommendations except, regrettably, the last. I am grateful for the Leader of the House's support for the Procedure Committee's report, but I am disappointed that she was not prepared to add her weight to the proposal to add just one half-hour debate slot to Thursday's Westminster Hall sitting. That would provide a dedicated petitions slot, in which the presenting Member could discuss the petition and the reply.
	Such a slot would have demonstrated that the House was now committed to taking petitions seriously, and it would also have served to concentrate Ministers' minds not only on their responsibility to reply, but on the content of the reply.
	Although petitions are addressed to the House of Commons, the remedies that they seek can often be secured only through Government action, so proper Government responses to petitions are an essential part of any effective system. I am pleased that the Government have given an undertaking to respond to petitions. However, I am slightly concerned that the wording used by the Leader of the House is that normally, only substantive petitions should receive a response. Despite that wording, I hope she will issue guidance to Ministers that except in very exceptional circumstances, all petitions should receive a response, even if the response is to the effect that the issue raised is one for local government, rather than for national Government. That is none the less a response.
	The hon. Member for East Dunbartonshire (Jo Swinson), who is no longer in her place, and one or two other Members have said that the Procedure Committee should have been more radical in its proposals for petitions, and that we should have suggested the setting up of a petitions Committee and an e-petitions system. To them I say, "Watch this space". We expressed support in our report for e-petitions, and we have said that we are going on to examine the practical and procedural implications, with a view to bringing a worked-up system back to the House.
	The Government—I applaud them for this—have placed it on record that they are in favour of an e-petitions system for the House of Commons, and have encouraged us to complete our work on that as soon as possible. I can tell the Leader of the House that we have already made a good start. E-petitions to the House of Commons have the potential to make a significant contribution to the House's aim of improving how it connects with the public, but if e-petitions are to fulfil that potential, the system must be robust and properly resourced, and the House must be willing to listen to what the public are saying, which means that there may have to be some sort of system whereby certain petitions are then eligible for debate.
	The petitioning procedure has for a long time been an obscure one and relatively little used. The proposals that the House is being asked to approve this afternoon will bring the petitioning system some way out into the light to make it more accessible to our constituents. But make no mistake—the introduction of e-petitioning will take us much further. If anyone doubts the potential impact of e-petitions, they should look at the No. 10 website.

John Bercow: My right hon. Friend is almost overflowing, like Vesuvius, with enthusiasm for the idea. Does he conceive of such petitions as an automatic trigger for debate? For if that is in his mind, I dare to bid caution that we do not end up creating, deliberately or inadvertently, a charter for professional activists, when we have not even got round to assuring, underpinning and extending the rights of Members of Parliament to trigger debates if they happen to occupy the Back Benches. That seems to me a more important and immediate priority.

Greg Knight: I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. Enthusiasm is not, of itself, a decision, and I would not wish to prejudge what the Procedure Committee may or may not decide in due course. May I underline to him that even in the realm of e-petitions, my Committee is strongly of the view that the link with the constituency Member should not be broken, because one can well see a scenario where, if e-petitions were allowed without a Member facilitating the petition going on line, candidates for all other parties in marginal seats might start bombarding the House with e-petitions to give the illusion that they are somehow responsible for some parliamentary activity. We are very conscious of the fact that the link with the sitting Member is important. Our initial thinking—we have not yet taken it to a formal decision—is indeed that if we are to recommend e-petitioning to the House, we would want to keep the link with the sitting constituency Member.
	Partly for the reasons that I have just given, it will take the Procedure Committee a little more time to reach a conclusion on e-petitions, and I am sure the House will understand why we are determined as a Committee to ensure that any further proposals we make are robust and well thought through, and will prove to be effective and useful to all Members of this House in due course. Subject to the caveats I have mentioned, I commend the Procedure Committee motion to the House.

George Young: It is a pleasure to follow my right hon. Friend the Member for East Yorkshire (Mr. Knight), who chairs the Procedure Committee with such distinction, and it is a tribute to his chairmanship that the recommendations from his Committee have been so consensual and robust that they have not so far generated a lot of controversy in this debate. I agree with what he said at the beginning of his speech, when he gently disassociated himself from our hon. Friend the Member for Northampton, South (Mr. Binley) on what is called multi-tasking. I think that that is a somewhat misleading title. All that is recommended is that
	"the use of handheld devices to keep up to date with e-mails should be permitted in the Chamber provided that it causes no disturbance."
	It seems to me that that simply validates what has been the practice for some time, and I do not find it enormously controversial—

Brian Binley: rose—

George Young: Although my hon. Friend clearly does.

Brian Binley: No; my concern is not that the issue is controversial. My concern is whether my right hon. Friend recognises that hand-held devices go way beyond the simple act of e-mailing, and how he would control their uses so they are not used in a manner that he might not wish to see.

George Young: I understand that, but it is not the proposition that is before the House. The proposition is that we should keep up to date with e-mails, and just e-mails. There is no proposition that we should take photos of each other during a debate or participate in any other mischief that might be done with the devices with which the Whips have very kindly provided us.

John Bercow: Will my right hon. Friend give way?

George Young: I want to move on.
	If I may say so, Mr. Deputy Speaker, it is particularly appropriate that you are in the Chair, as the evidence that you gave to the Modernisation Committee clearly helped to inform its conclusions. Several hon. Members have referred to regional Select Committees. I think that that proposal would aggravate the problem that is before the Chamber this afternoon rather than alleviate it. It would be yet a further demand on the time of the hard-pressed Back Bencher and cut across the work of existing Select Committees. It would not provide proper accountability, as the regional Minister is not the budget holder for the money that is being spent in a region. As I indicated in business questions, I very much hope that the Government will not go down the regional Select Committee route, as I think that it would simply aggravate the sort of issues that we have been discussing this afternoon.
	As is usual when we debate the work of a Select Committee, in one hand we have the report and in the other we have the Government's response. What is unusual today with regard to the Modernisation Committee is that both the report and the reply were drafted by the Leader of the House. It is like something out of "The Mikado", in which Pooh-Bah was lord high everything, and consulted himself in his various capacities. I do not think that W. S. Gilbert had Pooh-Bah as the Minister for Women and the chairman of the Japanese Labour party, but there is a certain incongruity and circularity in the process that has been gone through in putting the report before us this afternoon.
	It is simply wrong that a report whose title refers to "the role of the back bench Member" should be drafted by a member of the Cabinet. Indeed, because of the abundance of talent from the Leader of the House and her predecessor, neither of them has ever spent much time as a Back-Bench Member of Parliament. That brings me to the first point that I want to make. Such reports should be produced by a Select Committee of Back-Bench Members of Parliament chaired by a Back Bencher. That is what happens in every other Select Committee, and there is no reason why it should not happen in the Modernisation Committee. I have made that point unrepentantly for several years, regardless of who was Leader of the House, and I am happy to say that I now have third-party endorsement.
	Last week saw the publication of "The House Rules?"—a Constitution Unit report by Meg Russell and Akash Paun. It provides a worthy route map for the Modernisation Committee and I hope that Members will find time to read it. That report says of the process that we are witnessing today:
	"However, to sign up to the committee's"—
	that is, the Modernisation Committee's—
	"conclusions, the Leader of the House must ensure they are acceptable to the government. This can easily be seen as in conflict with the principle that the House controls its own procedures".
	Indeed. That process of securing approval from the Government in advance, before publishing the report, is an unacceptable constraint on a Select Committee. The Constitution Unit report goes on to say that if the reforms are adopted,
	"we see no need for the continuation of the Modernisation Committee. This should be merged with the Procedure Committee, under a strong backbench chair."
	I can think of no better candidate for that post than my right hon. Friend the Member for East Yorkshire. It is simply wrong that the Cabinet Minister whose job it is to deliver the Government's legislative programme should also be the Chairman of the Committee that decides the process that that programme should follow in the House. That is a constitutional short-circuit that should set alarm bells ringing and red lights flashing.
	That leads me to my second point, which is about the title of the report: "Revitalising the Chamber: the role of the back bench Member". The report should be about empowering Back Benchers—strengthening them, as my hon. Friend the Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Mr. Shepherd) said. It is all very well to raise the Back Bencher's profile, to give him more speaking opportunities and make better use of his time, but does the report actually increase his authority? I am not convinced; it does not change the terms of trade between Parliament and the Executive.
	Let me give a couple of examples of where I think the report should have gone further. I welcome the recommendations on Select Committees as far as they go, but the Chairman of a Select Committee should be able to present his report to the House on the day of its publication. He should be allowed to make a statement; I see no reason why Ministers should have a monopoly on statements to the House. Many Select Committee reports have been far more important than some of the statements that we get from Ministers—for example, the Rural Payments Agency report by the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee and some of the Foreign Affairs Committee and Public Administration Committee reports.
	At the moment Select Committee reports get time for debates, but debate time is worth less than statement time. Statements come early in the day and get much more media coverage. More Members will come in for a statement because they have a greater opportunity to take part than during a debate and can intervene without tying up half a day. Furthermore, statements on the day of publication are topical, whereas debates weeks after the Government have responded are not. If the issue were left to me, the Minister would have the opportunity to put a question to the Select Committee Chairman after his statement, just as we put questions to Ministers after their statements.
	To continue with the same theme, the debates on Select Committee reports at the moment are Adjournment debates; they are often thinly attended and consist only of Committee members talking to each other. We should be able to vote on Select Committee reports and I am sorry that the Government cannot bring themselves to contemplate that. Voting on reports would give them a higher profile, concentrate the Government's attention on what was being said and engage the attention of a broader range of Members of Parliament. I accept that if the Committee members knew that their report was likely to be voted on, it might be more difficult to secure a consensus, but I think that a price worth paying.
	The Government keep telling us that they are interested in making the Chamber more topical, but on Tuesday we debated the Members' fund when we should have debated the pre-Budget report and the comprehensive spending review. Vital Government statements of financial and political priority that set the parameters for the next three years are not being debated at all—and that from a Government who want to make the Chamber more topical.
	I agree that we need less time on the Queen's Speech; many of the Bills in the next Session will have been carried over and will have had pre-legislative scrutiny. The Queen's Speech was announced in July; indeed, it was debated in July. The spontaneity of the Queen's Speech is not what it was, and we should recognise that it needs less time for formal debate after the Loyal Address.
	The report includes a section about advice. If I can put on my "Standards and Privileges" hat for a moment and encourage Members to get advice, the Tea Room is very good for gossip but not always good for advice. The report recommends that Members should get proper advice from the right channels if they need it.
	There is a big chunk about induction, which has not been touched on in the debate. I went to one of the induction meetings at the beginning of this Parliament. It was enormously valuable; I learned far more from that session with new Members than they learned from me. It is right that we make recommendations to improve the induction process.

Peter Soulsby: In fact, induction was discussed earlier; several Members referred to it. The point was made that induction should not just be a one-off event when new Members are overwhelmed having just arrived—there should be an ongoing process of enabling Members to understand the business of the House and make best use of its procedures.

George Young: I entirely agree. One can be invited to accumulate too much information in a short space of time—it needs to be over a longer period and regularly refreshed.
	On length of speeches, I do not think that I have ever said to a neighbour, "That speech was too short", but I have had occasion to say—I may have said it earlier today—"That speech was too long." I endorse the recommendations on length of speeches. The report was kind enough to attribute to me the view that four eight-minute speeches are likely to be of higher value than two 16-minute speeches. I like the idea of moving time limits. It could be like the variable speed limits on the M25. As there is congestion, so the speed limit is reduced; as the Speaker or the Deputy Speaker sees that the debate is congested, so he could reduce the time available.
	In a sense, time is what this debate is about. The Government's response says:
	"The report reflects...a careful examination of how backbenchers want to use their time to best effect and of the obstacles standing in the way of contributing directly to the work of the Chamber".
	When I first got here, time was not a problem. We used to sit around waiting for the votes. By 10 o'clock in the morning, one had dealt with the constituency, the post had come in, there were no Select Committees, and one could devote time to the Chamber. Now, time is the most important commodity that we have. All the Select Committees should see whether they can reduce the pressure on Members' time, including the Administration Committee and perhaps even my own Committee. Why do we have to fill in that travel form every month and try to remember which tickets we used? How much time do we spend trying to get our swipe card to open some of the doors and turnstiles into the building? How much time do we spend chasing Government Departments for replies, or deleting e-mails from other people's constituents and all-party groups?
	That brings me to my final point. All our activity is shoehorned into two and a half days. One of the proposals that I made to the Committee—one of the many that it ignored—would have stretched the parliamentary week and made Thursday a proper day. I think that Prime Minister's questions should take place on a Thursday. If it took place at 5 o'clock on a Thursday evening, the Chamber would now be filling up; but more importantly, it would make Thursday a proper parliamentary day when Select Committees and all-party groups could meet, instead of squeezing everything into Tuesday and Wednesday.
	I like the report as far as it goes, but I would have preferred several recommendations to be taken further. Perhaps there will be an opportunity to revisit the subject during the remainder of this Parliament.

John Redwood: I have no objections to the proposals before the House, but I cannot tell whether they will make a contribution to reviving democracy in this Chamber, because that will very much depend on the spirit in which they are implemented by the Government of the day. We have a majority-based system and I think that that is right. I fully accept that when a Government win a sizeable majority, as this Government have, two very important powers or privileges are extended to people who are Ministers. First, Ministers can do anything they like under the law with the moneys raised by the state, and with the Administration at their command, they can instruct officials to do whatever they wish. Secondly, if they do not like the law, they can change it in any way they like. Both of those great powers are great privileges and Ministers exercise them with care if they are sensible. All that they have to do in order to carry on exercising those powers is to ensure that enough of their hon. and right hon. Friends continue to support them at crucial times.
	However, there is one other thing that they have to do. Every four or five years, they have to face the question whether the electors think that they have used their powers intelligently and well. We live in a country that has a great sense of fairness. The country feels that a Government are stronger for licensing dissent, debate and disagreement than they are for trying to close it down. We live in a country where people respect a Government who allow minority parties and interests in this House decent opportunity to give voice to their views, which may, on occasion, be the views of the majority in the country, not the views of the minority who voted for the Government.
	The public also like to feel that the Government do not just afford the minority that opportunity in order to give vent to feelings, but are listening and seriously engaging with those different views. An intelligent Government, who wish to stay in power for a long time, have to understand that this is an intrinsically democratic country and that people expect give and take, and expect their Government to learn sometimes from those who oppose them, as well as those who advise and support them in good times and bad.
	When I was a Minister, a group of Labour MPs launched a strong, interesting campaign, saying that there were too many quangos, that they had too many powers and that too many supporters of the Government were involved with them. I listened to that campaign and watched it for a while before I realised that it was right. Within the limits of collective responsibility and Government debate, I tried to move what I was doing in the direction of responding to those criticisms—cutting back the powers of the quangos, cutting their budgets and balancing up the appointments—because I thought the campaign was making powerful points.
	Ironically, because those MPs were rather good at opposition, they often started opposing my measures to correct the initial problem, but they were right about that problem, and it was my job to fight it. If I had just decided that they were completely wrong and dealt with everything they said with a political put-down or a cheap point, or reminded them about the problems of the Labour Government in 1978, I would not have been doing my job properly. I would not have gained any respect from the people I sought to serve if I treated them as beings who had no right to a view, and assumed automatically that their view was wrong and decided that the way to deal with it was to make cheap political points about dim, distant past history.
	The idea that we need topical debates is a very good test of whether the Government are new and more democratic in a way that the outgoing Prime Minister's Government were not. The Government have a choice. As they will effectively control what the topical debates will be about, they will, in any given week, have a difficult choice to make.
	Most weeks there is a crisis in one Department or another. Most weeks, there is an illustration of bureaucratic mess or ministerial mistakes. Some weeks, Ministers are on the rack. The Opposition and many people in the media would like the topical debate to highlight that crisis or that Minister under pressure. That would provide excitement in the Chamber—somebody would be on trial. There could be a real consequence of the Minister doing very well, in which circumstance the Government would be strengthened, or the Minister doing badly, in which circumstance the case for getting rid of them is enhanced. If the Government are brave enough to do that, democracy wins. The Government may have a bad week or a good one depending on how skilful they are. If they duck such issues every time and say, "No, that isn't what we want by way of a topical debate; the debate will be on some worthy topic that attracts cross-party support because it is something nice to talk about", the proposals will fail to invigorate and improve our democracy in the way we are told they might.
	Topical questions are a good idea. It is often frustrating to find that one's question has not come high up the Order Paper, and that all the questions that have could have been tabled in a county council chamber and relate to specific matters in specific constituencies, leaving no room for open questions that enable a Back Bencher to intervene on a matter of national interest. The report rightly gives instances of topical matters being well without the scope of the limited range of questions on an Order Paper. That means that departmental questions that month are a waste of time. The press and public, to the extent that they are watching, think that it is nonsense because a big issue faced the Department but it did not even come up in departmental questions. The press and public often claim that nobody bothered to ask about it. They do not understand that our procedures prevent Members of Parliament who are desperate to ask about the subject from doing so because nothing on the Order Paper enabled them to go in that direction.
	The Government are set on dividing England into separate regions. They wrongly believe that that will prevent the English problem from growing. It is no answer to people who wish England to have some balanced treatment of its affairs to reflect the devolution in Scotland and Wales to say that it will have some regional treatment in the Palace of Westminster. That is a red rag to a bull and not a way to tackle the tension. I hope that the Leader of the House understands that it will incense people who are worried about the plight of England; it will not reassure them. She should also understand that it poses grave questions about whether the Government have any belief in devolution.
	I am a Member of Parliament from the south-east, as the Government see it. Many of us in the south-east do not recognise it as a region. It is drawn so clumsily that it means that London is not part of it, yet people in my region look to London for shopping, leisure and employment. We have much conversation and many dealings with London. We have almost no links with places such as Kent and Sussex, which are in my region. There is no regional feeling—the region is an artificial construct.
	Furthermore, the south-east happens to be the region in England that always elects a Conservative majority. My hon. Friends and I strongly object to wasting money on regional government. We do not want the regional assembly, the development agency, the regional planning system or the housing quangos. We want them to be swept away. When the Leader of the House suggests that we need a body to provide accountability for the unaccountable quangos, she faces a genuine dilemma. Those who represent the so-called region do not want the quangos. We do not want to make them accountable; we want to get rid of them. If any sort of public intervention or expenditure of public moneys is needed—we would prefer less of both—that should be done through elected local government, which is democratically accountable and has some sense of locality and belonging. We have no sense of that in the south-east region as a whole.
	I look forward to seeing how the proposals bed down. They could be an important step in the right direction. If we had the right topical debates, the Chamber would fill up more, the press would be more interested and the public would realise that we were responding to more of the daily issues that worry them. If the question system worked better, that would reinforce the idea of topicality. If we want the Select Committee system to work well, I support the comments of my right hon. Friend the Member for North-West Hampshire (Sir George Young) that creating more Select Committees for bogus regions will detract from concentrating good people on the existing Select Committees and letting them do a better job. If the Government wish to strengthen Select Committees, they should not have more of them but give the existing ones more power.

John Bercow: On topical debates, may I underline the fact that I am persuaded neither by the arguments of the Leader of the House nor by those of my right hon. Friend the Member for East Yorkshire (Mr. Knight) against the notion of early-day-motion-triggered debates, or debates triggered by a secret ballot, which my hon. Friend the Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Mr. Shepherd) advanced. What is my right hon. Friend's position on that?

John Redwood: I tend to see early-day motions as parliamentary graffiti. I always point out to my constituents when they want me to sign them that they are meaningless, that they never get debated and that the Government do not take them seriously. Those things are all clearly true. I understand that some colleagues think that it could be possible to make early-day motions more significant. If someone came up with a working model for that, I would be prepared to consider it. I tend to sign the jokey early-day motions. If I notice an early-day motion congratulating a sports team that I support, I am happy to put my name to it, because it can do no harm and is obviously meant nicely.
	Occasionally I sign serious early-day motions if there is no other way of making the point. I do not do so because I think that that is the best way to make the point—I know that it is the worst—but because it is sometimes a sign of frustration at the fact that an early-day motion is the only way left to make Ministers consider an issue on which we cannot get a debate or question. The big problem with early-day motions is that Ministers do not have to consider them, whereas if there is a debate in this place, a Minister has to come and answer it. If an hon. Member writes a letter to a Minister, the Minister—unfortunately, it is often someone on the Minister's behalf these days—has to write back. There is no such trigger with an early-day motion.
	My hon. Friend the Member for Buckingham (John Bercow) might be right that it could be possible to devise a scheme for triggering debates if enough hon. Members signed an early-day motion. However, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Maidenhead (Mrs. May) said, there would then have to be a way of distinguishing those early-day motions that congratulate a soccer team on winning a game—I trust that most colleagues would not wish to spend an hour and a half debating such a motion in the House, pleased though they may be with their team's result—from one about a serious question that warranted debate. There has to be a filter, and ultimately that filter is the Government, because they have the majority and they will decide what will be debated.
	The Government should see this debate in the context of the fact that a large number of people are disengaged from party politics of the kind that the three main parties offer and from how this place does or does not conduct its business, for the various reasons that others have already mentioned. If the House could have more topical debates, with more power, passion and real exchange, that would be good. However, that will work only if the Government wish it to work and if they come to Parliament with a certain democratic humility. If they want to live in a world where minority opinions can be forcefully expressed and will occasionally make an impact on the Government, our democracy will start to flourish. If they wish to continue with a system in which all minority opinion is briefed against and dealt with in a brutal and politically crude way that does not answer the question or point that that minority opinion is making, our democracy will not flourish and the House will be largely wasting its time.

Richard Shepherd: It will come as no surprise to friends and colleagues in the House that I have reservations about the process by which we have arrived at this point. Anyone who has had sufficient time even to glance at the Modernisation Committee's report will see that it is now called "Revitalising the Chamber: the role of the back bench Member". The report started life earlier in the year as two inquiries. The one that interested me was the one into revitalising the Chamber, because I have been around and I have come to a conclusion. The revitalisation of the Chamber depends on the initiatives for debate and on the business of the House being controlled much more by the Members of the House, rather than through the partisan allotment of time by the Crown in Parliament—the Leader of the House, who, in the generosity of the new Government, combines several posts. I am glad to see her in her role as the Leader of the House.
	We agonised over what to call the second and very important inquiry, because the then Leader of the House, who is now the Secretary of State for Justice, was conscious that we had to do something as a House about its standing. We came up with "Strengthening the role of the backbencher". We laboured long in this vineyard. The Constitution Society and the Hansard Society were mentioned earlier. I strongly recommend that people read the evidence given to the Committee. It is very good, reasonable and intelligent—everything that one would expect—and from it sprang certain interesting ideas. Unfortunately, many of them are a "back to the future" approach to life, inasmuch as it is difficult to reinvent the wheel.
	One crucial issue relates to the all-encompassing Standing Order that effectively says that Government business takes precedence over all other business in this House—save for the days allotted to the Opposition and the Liberal Democrats and the time given to Back-Bench Members on Fridays for private Members' Bills. My hon. Friend the Member for Macclesfield (Sir Nicholas Winterton) will recall as I do when we had something called private Members' motions. Any Member could enter a ballot for the ability to move a substantive motion and, if necessary, secure a vote on it.
	That is the star role in the House. No Government want to surrender it, and certainly no Opposition posturing to be a Government want to surrender it. Not even the sub-Opposition hoping to be a Government want to surrender it. We are suppressed because, in some of the magic moments after Jopling had reported, successive Leaders of the House—they were Conservative—somehow did away with substantive motions proposed by Back Benchers on a ballot. They just went. They were bought off when the Opposition were offered yet more guaranteed days for these wretched three-hour debates in which it is virtually impossible for a Back Bencher to participate. It is all in the hands of those who hope to form the Government.
	The Prime Minister, who made a statement on Monday, reassured us that all was well in the Scottish elections and that in any event we were all to blame. Would a Government table a substantive motion to discuss the actions of the present Secretary of State for International Development, the former Secretary of State for Scotland? Would the Opposition propose such a debate in a partisan spirit? There must be many Scottish Members—I am thinking of members of the Scottish National party, whose Benches are empty, and independent Members—who want to know why no Minister has been held to account, but where is the substantive motion? The Government are unlikely to choose to table one.
	I think of how this House has handled the war in Iraq; I think of the vitality of the United States Congress in discussing such matters; and I compare it with the leaden way in which debate has proceeded here. In five years, we have had—I think—three debates on the war. Who could be responsible for that? Standing Order No. 41 gives the Government absolute pre-eminence in the selection of debates.
	Let me quote what the Clerk of the House had to say about these matters. Page 51—to help those who ever read  Hansard—of this sad report states:
	"The Clerk of the House pointed out that 'What back bench Members cannot do currently is initiate debates on a substantive motion which would enable them to test the opinion of the House on a subject at their own initiative.' He went on to say such a reform would be a significant strengthening of the role of a back bench Member. Reintroducing Private Members' Motions could also provide a vehicle for those who felt that there should be some mechanism for Early Day Motions to be debated."
	Goodness!

Ann Widdecombe: Does my hon. Friend recall that in the days when we could move private Members' motions, we could even move them in respect of the business of the House? We could even move that the House sit beyond its normal finishing time on a Friday, for example, in order to consider something, and if the majority of the House so voted, that is what we would do. Was that not real power?

Richard Shepherd: It is the very essence of what Parliament, or the House of Commons, should be about. The total blanket imposed by those on the Government and Opposition Front Benches who carve up what we shall do and how we shall consider things has brought us to our present parlous state in the public perception. "What is the point of Members of Parliament? They never talk about what is happening in the real world," people say ill-advisedly. It is two tin armies banging against each other, while the rest of us wander off somewhere else.
	How will the report be interpreted by those who read it? I disagree with my hon. Friend the Member for Buckingham (John Bercow) about the suggestion by the Leader of the House that we should now be able to multi-task. The Leader of the House must have invented that expression in this context, because I do not think we used it in the report. It must be in the Government's response. Anyway, it is an extraordinary concept.
	It may be that I am so underprivileged that I had a Neanderthal education, but the very essence of life, and of success in life, is concentration: concentrating on the issue at hand. The issue at hand in this Parliament, this House of Commons, is the making of laws. We go round in circles saying these things. We make laws that can have criminal intent. Can there be anything more serious than the thought that we will send someone to prison, that we will incarcerate someone? Ours is serious business—but we understand the boredom and tedium for the Front Benches. I see that the Leader of the House has already vacated her position. Presumably she is performing her role as Minister for Women and Equality, or perhaps she is planning another election campaign.

Helen Goodman: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Richard Shepherd: Gladly.

Helen Goodman: May I just point out that the Leader of the House has been in the Chamber for some six hours, and needed something to eat so that she did not get a headache?

Richard Shepherd: I am very glad to hear about her domestic arrangements; one is interested in that. The substance of what we are about, however, is her subject. I have been in the House when Home Secretaries have sat not just for six hours, as the Deputy Leader of the House has indignantly said, but for a whole debate. I saw Willie Whitelaw, when he was Home Secretary, sit through the whole of a debate on immigration policy, which is a very sensitive subject. He left only once for about a minute and a half, and I cannot imagine what that was for.
	This is the banality into which the House has descended, and that we put up with it as Back Benchers is absurd. Here we had an opportunity—a real and genuine opportunity, if a small one. My amendment, which was defeated so narrowly by seven to one, was a modest proposal. I would read it out, but it is available to be read by those who are interested. It proposed just four a year, and the debates would not have been held on Fridays but during the week. [Hon. Members: "Four what?] Four motions, and which Members were to move them would be determined by ballot.
	My hon. Friend the Member for Macclesfield unfortunately could not move an amendment in the Committee because he was absent, but his amendment was taken. All that it requested the Government to do was consider not arranging for Government statements to be made on Opposition days. There was another request: could the Government be a little more generous, and not impose the guillotine in such a rigorous way? The great Committee, on its knees, was affronted to think that something like this could be taken away from the Government, and voted it down.

John Bercow: Will my hon. Friend give way?

Richard Shepherd: I hope my hon. Friend will forgive me if I do not. I have heard him and I am grateful for his interventions, but I know that the Deputy Leader of the House is anxious to set us right on the wrongness of our ways.
	That is what it has always been about. Ten years into the Modernisation Committee, as my right hon. Friend the Member for North-West Hampshire (Sir George Young) said in his interesting and important contribution—there is no question about that—in the end, where do we go? We have been around these circles. The Modernisation Committee has been the instrument of the Executive, who have taken total control over the Standing Orders. The report shows us that. It is total control. It is set out. All Government business takes precedence, save for the few days—the crumbs—that are left to those below the salt. That is what it has achieved. If it did nothing else but that, it would gladden the heart of the most reactionary old "divine right of kings" in the Government. They have a divine right. They were elected. They tell me the Prime Minister was elected.

William Cash: He was appointed.

Richard Shepherd: It was an appointment. My hon. Friend puts his finger on something that has been said both by my own Front Benchers and the Liberal Democrats. They said that we want to strengthen Parliament. It is an absurd proposition. Parliament is supreme. That is an important constitutional doctrine. In theory there is nothing one needs to do to strengthen it. It has all the powers. They are, however, not exercised by the Members of the House of Commons; they are exercised by the Executive. They are the Executive by the appointment of the Crown and they control a majority.
	We see this Chamber merely in terms of majoritarianism. That is what it has descended to. I remember Whitelaw wanting to know, meet and head off and genuinely engaging in debate. When Douglas Hurd was a Member of the House, however outrageous my opinions were on freedom of information, he engaged with them. I think of the repressiveness of the Home Office. My goodness, looking back, the Home Office was a bastion of liberality compared with the hurried visitors through the offices of it now—authoritarian is being redefined even as we speak on the Floor of the House.  [Interruption.] I give way to my hon. Friend the Member for Macclesfield (Sir Nicholas Winterton).

Nicholas Winterton: I am hoping to get in; that is all.

Richard Shepherd: I apologise. I thought it was my bounden duty, as if it were a three-line whip, to allow my hon. Friend to intervene.
	I do not think that I will oppose any of this. Perhaps I will oppose the motion on the jangling machine in our pockets, as someone said. Even with the 90 minutes, the Government get the first 10 minutes, the Opposition get 10 minutes—up to 10 minutes, I was reminded by the Leader of the House—and the Liberal Democrats get six minutes. Then there may be a little winding-up session. By the time we have carved up the 90 minutes, what is left for the poor suckers, us the Back Benchers? To consider that a sincere, determined effort, as the former Leader of the House said, to strengthen our role!
	We come to the present Leader of the House. Her first public act in this House was to suspend Standing Orders, in order that she could impose on the Home Affairs Committee the choice of the Executive as its Chairman. She has been the first contested Chairman of the Modernisation Committee as a consequence of that and rightly so. She has three roles. We talk about a new constitutional settlement. It is a joke. We hear the Secretary of State for Justice peddle those things. At the expense of the taxpayer—perhaps I should not be so derisory but it is at great expense—we produce a report wherein the wisdom lies in the submissions made to the Committee, not in the deliberations of the Committee. That is why the greatest possible opportunity for Back Benchers is snuffed out and passes away.
	We could have done something that would have strengthened the role but that wily old Secretary of State for Justice sits there and says, as is said at every meeting, "There is no point at all in suggesting this, Aldridge-Brownhills. The Whips won't accept it." We have the absurdity of the Chairman, the Leader of the House of Commons, consorting with the Whips. That is the real world—not a world of aspiration or of ideals, but a world of practicality. The practicality lies in the Committee; it is its way of controlling the House of Commons. We should remember that in what we do.

John Bercow: There is no more impassioned or articulate speaker in the House of Commons than my hon. Friend, but although there are real grounds for dissatisfaction that some of the evidence given to the Committee was not accepted and that not all of the recommendations are quite as thoroughgoing as we would like, it is reasonable at least to consider the proposition that the glass if half-full rather than half-empty. There are good things in this report that the Government are commending and which the House will take forward. I do not think that one wants to take a view that the world has been going progressively downhill since the 11th century and probably for some period before.

Richard Shepherd: I defer to my hon. Friend's knowledge of the 11th century. I am dealing with our immediate history; today, yesterday and the day before. That was an absurd intervention and I will now sit down and allow my hon. Friend the Member for Macclesfield to speak.

Nicholas Winterton: First, I apologise for not being present for a major part of the debate; I have been chairing an important Public Bill Committee.
	I am delighted to have heard my hon. Friend the Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Mr. Shepherd), whose commitment to this House and to democracy is unequalled, as is his courage in advancing his arguments on behalf of Back-Bench Members. I agree with my hon. Friend, supported by my right hon. Friend the Member for Maidstone and The Weald (Miss Widdecombe), about the importance of private Members' motions. They gave authority to Back Benchers—Government or Opposition—to move motions that were embarrassing to the Government.
	Programming has not featured greatly today. Programming, or guillotining, is unacceptable. If Members who want to speak on an important Bill are not called on Second Reading or appointed to the Public Bill Committee, the only opportunity that they have to speak is on Report or during remaining stages. Even those stages are now subject to programming, which is fundamentally wrong. A Member must have at least one opportunity during the passage of a Bill to speak to it.
	The report recommends that programming be kept under review and that the Government agree. I do not want that; I want a commitment that there will be no programming of remaining stages. We would then become much more democratic and the public would believe more in the House, because Members would be able to speak to—if not have influence over—Bills and could indicate their view or that of their constituents.
	I say to the Deputy Leader of the House that there are quite a lot of good things in this report. I comment with some experience and knowledge. I have been on the Modernisation Committee since its establishment in 1997 and I am its longest-serving member, and I have also had the honour of chairing the Procedure Committee for the longest period that one is permitted to do so—in my case, that was eight years. I come to this debate with some experience and commitment. My final years in this House are being committed, and will be committed, to the integrity and sovereignty of this Chamber and the role of the Back Bencher. I want that role strengthened so that the Government are held more to account and people feel closer in touch with the House than they do at the moment.

Helen Goodman: It is a great privilege to respond to this debate, in which so many hon. Members have spoken with such great passion. I congratulate all those who took part in the Modernisation Committee's work, both those who gave evidence and Committee members.
	I would like to draw Members' attention to two particularly illuminating pieces of evidence. The first is the memorandum submitted by Professor Philip Cowley from the university of Nottingham. In both his oral and written evidence he touched on the myth of the golden era and the fact that Back Benchers are much more assertive now than they have been at any time since the mid-19th century. When describing the rebellions in the past 10 years, he said:
	"Such behaviour has continued since the 2005 election. Within the first year of its third term, the current Government were defeated four times in the House of Commons as a result of backbench dissent. No other post-war government with a majority of over 60 in the House of Commons suffered that many defeats in so short a time. Labour...dissent in the 2005—06 session ran at the rate of a rebellion in 28 per cent. of divisions".
	I understand that the rebellion on the Iraq war was the largest since the difficulties that Peel had with the corn laws. We need to avoid engaging in too much myth making. It is clear, as Professor Cowley says, that Back Benchers are themselves strengthening their role. Clearly, the era of sycophancy is dead.
	The second piece of evidence was given by one of the Deputy Speakers, Sir Alan Haselhurst. He most interestingly pointed out that the amount of time available to Back Benchers in Westminster Hall is more than 300 hours, which is almost three times what they had under the previous procedures. It is important that we have a realistic picture of what is going on, because that will allow us to make realistic and sensible improvements to our procedures.
	I turn to the amendment tabled by the right hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs. May). She welcomes the proposed introduction of topical debates and topical questions, as I believe did every hon. Member who spoke, but she is asking the Government to publish on a regular basis—fortnightly—as a written ministerial statement, a record of what representations have been made. I think that what she proposes would be rather inflexible. That is not to say that it will not be necessary to look at how we can be open about what hon. Members have requested, but something as restrictive as a written ministerial statement every fortnight would probably prove impractical.

Theresa May: I want the Government to make three commitments about topical debates. First, I want them to find a way of making known to hon. Members the subjects that have been proposed. We would thereby be able to see what decisions the Leader of the House took in choosing a subject. Secondly, I want the Government to find a way to enable Back Benchers to nominate subjects, so that topical debates are not discussed and determined only by Opposition and Government Front Benchers. Finally, I want the Government to commit to ensuring that topical debates do not eat into Opposition time.

Helen Goodman: We entirely accept the principle set out by the right hon. Lady; the matter really boils down to the modalities of how the information should be produced. We are completely open to Back Benchers nominating subjects, and my right hon. and learned Friend the Leader of the House pointed out that they could do so at business questions. If we have topical debates, the whole timetable will inevitably have to be looked at. At the moment, I am not in a position to say that all the time allocated to topical debates will come out of Government time.

William Cash: Will the Deputy Leader of the House give way?

Helen Goodman: No, I am sorry. The hon. Gentleman has not been in the debate—

William Cash: I was not able to be here!

Helen Goodman: Many other hon. Members have spoken and I want to respond to them.
	The right hon. Member for Maidenhead said that she wanted topical debates to go beyond departmental silos. That is a very sensible proposition, and the matter will partly be in the hands of those who suggest the debates as well as those of the Leader of the House.

Theresa May: I am grateful for the Deputy Leader's generosity in giving way, but I want to pick up on her saying that she cannot guarantee that topical debates will not be taken out of Opposition time. The point of such debates is that they give Members of the House greater freedom and increase the opportunity for debates that are not led by the Government. If they merely replace Opposition day debates and the time set aside for them, the House will be no better off.

Helen Goodman: I did not say that topical debates should replace Opposition time. I said that we will have to look at how the whole week is reshaped and that I could not guarantee that there would be no slicing of any Opposition time.
	The right hon. Member for Maidenhead asked us to review the use of Westminster Hall, and my right hon. and learned Friend the Leader of the House said that she would do so.
	My hon. Friend the Member for Linlithgow and East Falkirk (Michael Connarty) spoke about the work of the European Scrutiny Committee. I attended a sitting very briefly yesterday, and it is clear that it does its important work extremely well. However, it is also clear that the processes are inadequate, which is why the Government are committed to looking at them again. It is also why we accept the timetable offered by my hon. Friend and other members of the Committee.
	Many hon. Members spoke about the importance of induction, and we can all agree that that needs to be improved. Obviously, induction is not primarily a matter for the Government, but I understand that the Board of Management and the parties are already discussing how it can be improved. The hon. Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Mr. Shepherd) intervened on that point to say that we should increase the gap between the election and the return of Parliament. In our written response, we say that we are prepared to consider favourably a probable doubling of the amount of time that has elapsed between the election and Parliament's return in recent years.
	The hon. Member for North Southwark and Bermondsey (Simon Hughes) spoke about the role of Select Committees and the importance of debates on Select Committee reports, as did the right hon. Member for North-West Hampshire (Sir George Young). We do not believe that there could be sensible or coherent debates on reports before the Government had had an opportunity to respond, but we have agreed to look into a more measured timetable for considering them.
	The right hon. Member for North-West Hampshire suggested that such debates should be on substantive motions. However, votes in Select Committees might have the opposite effect to the one the right hon. Gentleman wants. If Members knew that they would have to take part in whipped votes, it could destroy the bipartisan approach that most Members take in Select Committees and which produces such high quality scrutiny.

John Bercow: Will the Deputy Leader of the House allow?

Helen Goodman: I am sorry, but I do not have time to take interventions if I am to respond to the points raised by Members.
	My hon. Friend the Member for North Durham (Mr. Jones) welcomed topical debates and gave us a good analysis of the accountability gap at regional level. With the Modernisation Committee, we are looking into regional accountability and the forms that can be used to deal with it.
	The hon. Member for Northampton, South (Mr. Binley) made a passionate speech about multi-tasking and electronic devices and spoke to us as I often do to my children when I think they are not listening properly. On the emotional level, I am entirely sympathetic to the hon. Gentleman, but the Modernisation Committee, for all its weaknesses, is an all-party body and recommended those small changes. The Government have accepted the recommendations but it is for the Speaker and the House authorities to look at the practicalities, which will in part address the issue of disturbance to Members.
	My hon. Friend the Member for Leicester, South (Sir Peter Soulsby), who is a member of the Modernisation Committee, spoke about multi-tasking, regional Select Committees and the benefits of topical debates.
	The right hon. Member for East Yorkshire (Mr. Knight), who is the Chair of the Procedure Committee, gave a sensible speech and his Committee produced a sensible and helpful report. We agree with most of its recommendations. From time to time, the use of petitions needs to be reviewed and, as I am sure the right hon. Gentleman knows, in the 1270s Edward I had a special initiative to increase petitions because then, as now, the Government had a rosy picture of their performance and needed to be reminded of how things are perceived.
	The right hon. Member for Wokingham (Mr. Redwood) and the hon. Members for Aldridge-Brownhills and for Macclesfield (Sir Nicholas Winterton) all spoke on important matters of principle—very sincere they were, too. The hon. Member for Macclesfield spoke about programming. I would like him to look at paragraph 122 of the report, where the evidence shows that programming has not had the dire effects that he described.
	I would like to conclude by commending the motions to the House.
	 It being Five o'clock, Mr. Deputy Speaker  put forthwith the Questions necessary for the disposal of the business to be concluded at that hour, pursuant to Order [22 October].
	 Amendment proposed: Amendment (a) to motion 1, at end add
	'but excluding the proposed acceptance of the Committee's recommendation 35, as set out in paragraph 31 of the Government's response, that the use of handheld devices to keep up to date with emails should be permitted in the Chamber.'.— [Sir Nicholas Winterton.]

Question put, That the amendment be made:—
	 The House divided: Ayes 36, Noes 74.

Question accordingly negatived.
	 Main Question put and agreed to.
	 Resolved,
	That this House welcomes the First Report of the Select Committee on Modernisation of the House of Commons on Revitalising the Chamber: the role of the back bench Member (House of Commons Paper No. 337) and approves the proposals for changes in the procedures and practices of the House set out in the Government's response to the report (Cm. 7231), including the proposals for topical questions.

MODERNISATION OF THE HOUSE OF COMMONS (CHANGES TO STANDING ORDERS)

Ordered,
	That in the next session of Parliament the following amendments to the Standing Orders, and new Orders, shall have effect:
	(A) Topical debates
	The following new Standing Order:
	 Topical debates
	(1) A Minister of the Crown may indicate that proceedings on a motion, That the House has considered a specified matter, being a matter of regional, national or international importance, are to be conducted as a topical debate.
	(2) A topical debate shall last for not more than one and a half hours, at which time the motion, unless previously disposed of, shall lapse.
	(3) A topical debate shall be opened by a Minister of the Crown who, when called by the Speaker, may speak for up to ten minutes.
	(4) A Member speaking on behalf of the Leader of the Opposition, when called by the Speaker, may speak for up to ten minutes either immediately following the Minister at the start of the debate or immediately before the Minister at its conclusion.
	(5) A Member nominated by the leader of the second largest opposition party, when called by the Speaker, may speak for up to six minutes either at the start of the debate or before the Member speaking on behalf of the Leader of the Opposition or the Minister, as the case may be, at its conclusion.
	(6) Members speaking under paragraphs (3), (4) or (5), when speaking at the start of the debate, shall be permitted to speak for an extra minute for each intervention they accept up to the same number as the number of minutes allocated to them to speak.
	(7) The Speaker may direct any Member speaking under paragraphs (3), (4) or (5) to resume his seat when he has spoken for the period provided for in those paragraphs and paragraph (6).
	(8) Time limits on speeches by other Members may be announced by the Speaker under Standing Order No. 47 (Time limits on speeches).
	(B) General debates
	(i) The following amendment to Standing Order No. 9 (Sittings of the House):
	Line 31, at end insert ', or that the House has considered a specified matter,'
	(ii) The following new Standing Order:
	 Amendments to motions to consider specified matters
	Where, in the opinion of the Speaker, a motion, That this House has considered a specified matter, is expressed in neutral terms, no amendment to it may be tabled.
	(C) Emergency debates
	The following amendments to Standing Order No. 24 (Adjournment on a specific and important matter that should have urgent consideration):
	Line 4, leave out 'to move the adjournment of the House for purpose of discussing' and insert 'that the House should debate'
	Line 7, leave out 'discussed' and insert 'debated'
	Line 15, leave out from 'made' to the end of the paragraph and insert—
	'(a) the debate shall be held on a motion that the House has considered the specified matter; and
	(b) the Speaker shall announce either—
	(i) the length of the debate and the time at which it is to be held; or
	(ii) that he will make such a statement at a later named hour during that sitting.
	(2A) Proceedings in respect of a debate under this order may last not more than three hours and, at the conclusion of the time allocated to them, pursuant to paragraph (2)(b) of this order, the motion, unless otherwise disposed of, shall lapse.'
	Line 23, leave out 'to propose to move the adjournment of the House under the provisions of' and insert 'make an application under'
	Line 43, leave out paragraph (6).
	Line 49, at beginning insert, 'If the Speaker announces that the debate will take place on the same day as the application is made,'
	Line 49, leave out from 'postponed' to the end of line 52, and insert 'as the result of that announcement, may continue, following the conclusion of proceedings on that debate, for the same time beyond the moment of interruption as that taken by the debate, and'
	Line 54, leave out from 'business)' to the end of the paragraph.
	(D) Time limits on speeches
	(i) Repeal of Standing Order No. 47 (Short speeches)
	(ii) The following new Standing Order:
	 Time limits on speeches
	47.—(1) The Speaker may announce that he intends to call Members to speak in a debate, or at certain times during that debate, for no longer than any period he may specify, and he may at any time make subsequent announcements varying the terms of an announcement under this paragraph.
	(2) Whenever the Speaker has made an announcement under paragraph (1), he may, subject to paragraph (4), direct any Member (other than a Minister of the Crown, a Member speaking on behalf of the Leader of the Opposition, or not more than one Member nominated by the leader of the second largest opposition party) who has spoken for that period to resume his seat forthwith.
	(3) The Speaker may announce, at or before the commencement of any debate (other than a topical debate) in respect of which he has made or intends to make an announcement under paragraph (1) of this order, that speeches by a Minister of the Crown, Members speaking on behalf of the Leader of the Opposition, and not more than one Member nominated by the leader of the second largest opposition party shall be limited to twenty minutes and he may direct any such Member who has spoken for that period to resume his seat forthwith.
	(4) In relation to any speech, the Speaker shall add to any period specified
	(a) under paragraph (1) of this order—
	(i) one minute if one intervention is accepted, plus the time taken by that intervention;
	(ii) two minutes if two or more interventions are accepted, plus the time taken by the first two such interventions;
	(b) under paragraph (3) of this order, one minute for each intervention accepted up to a maximum of fifteen minutes.— [Mr. Watts.]

PROCEDURE

Resolved ,
	That this House welcomes the First Report of the Procedure Committee on Public Petitions and Early Day Motions (House of Commons paper No. 513); and approves the proposals for changes in the procedures and practices of the House set out in the Government's response to the report in Cm. 7193.— [Mr. Watts.]

PROCEDURE (CHANGES TO STANDING ORDERS)

Ordered,
	That the following amendments to Standing Orders be made, with effect from the beginning of the next Session of Parliament:
	(1) In Standing Order No. 154 (Time and manner of presenting petitions):
	(i) line 5, leave out from 'be' to the end of line 6 and insert 'presented'
	(ii) line 10, leave out from the word 'conclusion' to the end of line 19
	(iii) line 20, leave out '(a) and (1)(b)'.
	(2) In Standing Order No. 156 (Printing of petitions and of ministerial replies)
	(i) line 4, leave out the words 'ordered to lie upon the Table and to be printed' and insert the words 'published in the Official Report'
	(ii) line 7, leave out from the word 'be' to the end of line 9 and insert 'published in the Official Report.'.— [Mr. Watts.]

EUROPEAN STANDING COMMITTEES (TEMPORARY NOMINATION)

Motion made, and Question proposed,
	That the Order of the House of 7th July 2005 relating to European Standing Committees (Temporary Nomination) shall continue to have effect in the next Session of Parliament .—[Mr. Watts.]
	 Amendment made: in line 3, at end add
	'for a period not longer than three months.'. — [Michael Connarty.]
	 Main Question, as amended, agreed to.

Modernisation of the House

Motion made, and Question proposed,
	That Mr. Paul Burstow be discharged from the Select Committee on Modernisation of the House of Commons and Simon Hughes be added.— [Mr. Watts.]

Greg Knight: I understand that the motion is debatable, as we have reached it before 6 pm. Is the hon. Member for North Southwark and Bermondsey (Simon Hughes) willing to address the House, to tell us why he wishes to be a member of the Modernisation Committee?

Simon Hughes: I had not intended to speak, but I shall say a few words. The short answer to the right hon. Gentleman's question is because I believe, as many other hon. Members said in the previous debate, that the House needs far more modernisation, and that we need a much stronger House of Commons. The House of Commons should be able to determine its own agenda, and we should be able to hold the Executive to account. All Back Benchers should be able to play a more effective role. That is my commitment. On the basis of that very short manifesto, I hope that I can be elected to the Select Committee on Modernisation of the House of Commons, even if I am not standing for other posts.
	 Question put and agreed to.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE

Ordered,
	That, at the sitting on Monday 29th October, proceedings on the Motion for the adjournment of the House in the name of the Prime Minister relating to Burma may continue, though opposed, for three hours or until Ten o'clock, whichever is the later, and shall then lapse if not previously disposed of.— [Mr. Watts.]

OFFICE OF FOREIGN ASSETS CONTROL LIST

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn. —[Mr. Watts.]

Ann Widdecombe: I am very grateful to have the opportunity to raise the case of my constituent Mr. Ricks and the operation of the OFAC list. It may be that, during the course of my remarks, the Minister will wonder why I have not decided that this is a Treasury issue, but in fact I believe that the only action that can now be taken to assist my constituent has to be through the Foreign Office and the American embassy. At the end of my remarks, I shall also ask the Minister to widen this matter beyond Mr. Ricks and to consider the position in general of British nationals on the OFAC list.
	In May 2007, Mr. Ricks, a constituent of mine, decided to do what millions of people do every year—sell his house and downsize. There was nothing particularly unusual in such a decision, and he sold his house, realising the sum of £800,000. He was not yet ready to buy the house into which he wished to downsize, so he very sensibly did what millions of people do when they have money that they are not going to use immediately, and decided to put this very considerable sum on deposit in order that it should earn him money until such time as he came to use it to buy a house. There is nothing at all unusual in that; as I say, millions of British citizens will be doing the same thing in any given year.
	Mr. Ricks looked around for the best deals. His own bank was the National Westminster, where the £800,000 was held at that time. He decided that Abbey had the best deal, so he wanted to transfer his money from the National Westminster to Abbey. Again, most people would say, "So what?" Such a transfer is also something that millions of people do every year. They switch money between one financial institution and another in order to get a better deal.
	In May 2007—I repeat that this took place in May—Mr. Ricks authorised the National Westminster to transfer to Abbey £800,000. That was done through a method called a CHAPS—clearing house automated payment system—transfer, which he was assured was the most secure method. The money never arrived at Abbey. Seemingly, it had disappeared into the ether. I ask how people would feel if all their money—our houses are where most of us have our money—which is their security in retirement and their only means of equipping themselves with another house, disappeared into the ether.
	Much worse was to follow. Mr. Ricks assumed, as I, and I think the Minister too, would have done if it had happened to us, that there had been a mistake and the money had been lost in transfer, that it was okay and that either NatWest or Abbey would find it, and it would come back. That is a perfectly reasonable attitude for him to take, but in fact he could not find out what had happened to his money. The transfer was completed on 15 May, but nobody could explain where the money had gone. Abbey could not, and I have to say that I consider that it treated Mr. Ricks rather poorly, because it more or less shrugged and said that it could not explain it; the money had never arrived, and it could not say what had happened.
	However, it transpired—under some pressure—that the money could not be transferred directly from the National Westminster into Abbey, as my constituent had quite reasonably assumed and as I would have assumed; Abbey did not have the necessary clearing arrangements to deal with the CHAPS transfer, so Citibank dealt with it. Again, one might think that there is nothing very odd about that; it was just that a third financial institution had become involved. Naturally, representations were made to Citibank—where was the money?
	Eventually, Abbey told my constituent the not-wholly-correct information that the money was being held by Citibank—that much was true—and that it was being checked for evidence of money laundering because it was such a large sum. At that stage, I intervened with the chairman of Abbey and discovered that the money was being held by Citibank because Mr. Ricks was on the OFAC list. OFAC has no legal force in this country, only in the United States, but because Citibank is US-owned, it froze a transfer of money within Britain from one British bank to another and it took many weeks for my constituent even to find out why it had done that. To be fair to Citibank, when it told the NatWest in May that it could not process the money, it said why, but that information was not passed to my constituent.
	So at that point, the money is arbitrarily frozen by Citibank. My constituent employs a solicitor and goes to the ombudsman. After 10 weeks, the ombudsman says that he cannot help; a barrister contests that, and it goes back to the ombudsman, who again insists that he cannot help. Meanwhile, what is happening to my constituent? He has no money; it has been arbitrarily taken from him. He is homeless—well, he is in a bedsit.
	Why did Citibank take his assets? It was because 20 years ago—not last year or the year before—my constituent had had business dealings in Iraq. I have supplied the Minister confidentially with the details of that involvement, which certainly had nothing to do with helping Iraq, but a lot to do with helping the British Government at the time. Be that as it may, he has not had involvement in Iraq for a long time.
	By July, we got the first instruction, which was that an application to be removed from the OFAC list should be completed by my constituent. He did that right away, as one would imagine. Here we are in October, and my constituent has still not been taken off the OFAC list and still does not have his money—let alone the interest that should have accrued while he held it at Abbey. On 18 September, I received what I regard as a not terribly helpful, if not dismissive, letter from a Treasury Minister telling me that this was a matter for the US embassy. I had already managed to work that out; I had written to that embassy on 3 August. No reply was ever received. I have to say that on the not very many occasions—although there have been some—when I have had to deal with the US embassy, its reaction has been characterised by, to say the very least, a failure of alacrity; I hope that the Minister was listening to that.
	On 26 September, we wrote a chasing letter to the embassy, which said that it had no record of the first letter. In October, the ambassador finally replied. He told us what we already knew: the money was held in Citibank and the only way to get it back was for my constituent to come off the OFAC list. The ambassador also said that it was a matter for the US Treasury Department and not for him. That was it. I have to say that I am running out of excuses for America. It seems to me that it is extremely high-handed and arrogant, and does not care too much for individual citizens who do not happen to be US citizens. There has been absolutely no positive result from my contact with the embassy.
	That is why I am asking the Minister if she will do two things. I will be most interested in her response to this situation. First, will a Minister—because the embassy is not taking any notice of me—make urgent and direct representations to the United States ambassador on Mr. Ricks's behalf. I think that the Foreign Office, together with the Treasury, should consider whether we are prepared to tolerate a situation in which money transferred between one British bank and another can be impounded on the say-so of the United States Government. I also think that we should ask the US Government if they will contact all British citizens on the OFAC list; ensure that they are aware—as Mr. Ricks was not until this happened—that they are on the OFAC list; ensure, in turn, that they are aware that if any of their assets, even from house sales, should fall into the hands of any American institution, they could be impounded; give each and every one of them the opportunity to apply for discharge from the OFAC list; and do so without having to wait for any further cases of this sort.
	I also think that the Treasury and the regulators should look very carefully at the operation of Citibank in this country, and at why money that was simply passing from one British bank to another should be under the control of anybody except the regulators and the law of this country. I appreciate that the Minister's Department is only half of this story, because the Treasury is the other half—I am sure that she will pass my comments on to her colleagues there—but I would be grateful if she would promise me that really serious representations will be made to the embassy and to the US Government, first, on behalf of Mr. Ricks, and secondly, on the propriety of that Government's controlling money passing lawfully between institutions in this country.

Meg Munn: I congratulate the right hon. Member for Maidstone and The Weald (Miss Widdecombe) on securing this debate on an issue that affects her constituent. She asked several questions, and I will do what I can to answer them.
	As the right hon. Lady outlined, someone who is on an Office of Foreign Assets Control sanctions list and whose funds have been frozen by a US bank has two possible remedies. First, they, or the bank holding their funds, can apply for a licence from OFAC permitting their funds to be released. There is guidance on the OFAC website about how to apply for a licence. Secondly, if the individual believes they have been incorrectly or unjustly designated by the US, they are able to apply to OFAC and request that they be de-listed, as the right hon. Lady's constituent has done.
	Supporting the UK economy and business through an open and expanding global economy is one of the Foreign Office's key strategic priorities. We firmly support an international rule-based system within which to conduct business. The challenge for the Government is to assist British nationals coming into contact with foreign businesses and Governments.
	The concept of extraterritorial jurisdiction relates to the wider issues that the right hon. Lady mentioned. It raises important questions about state sovereignty and the limits that international law places upon the reach of domestic law. In order to prevent conflicts between jurisdictions, international law has developed widely accepted grounds on which a state may exercise its jurisdiction by prescribing and enforcing its laws. The primary basis of jurisdiction under international law is territorial and states may also extend their laws to their own nationals wherever they may be. In certain circumstances, states may exercise their jurisdiction to regulate the conduct of non-nationals abroad when their own vital security interests are threatened. In some areas, the US has adopted a broader view of the extent of its own domestic jurisdiction, taking the view that it is entitled to exercise jurisdiction over the activities of non-nationals abroad merely because they have effects within US territory. For example, in the anti-trust field, the US has assumed jurisdiction over transactions, wherever and by whoever they take place, that have effects in the US.
	Over the years, the UK has repeatedly disputed the proper extent of US jurisdiction in this field. The US also assumes broad extraterritorial jurisdiction in other areas, such as the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, which permits criminal suits in respect of corrupt activity where only an element of it takes place within the US. The jurisdictional reach is very broad, as it encompasses acts committed by non-US nationals outside the US, regardless of any US security interest or effect within the US. The British Government have a strong commercial and legal interest in challenging broad assertions of extraterritorial jurisdiction by US courts, including under the alien tort statute, but currently intervene only on a case-by-case basis. I can tell the right hon. Lady that the Government have recently intervened in the US courts to express our concerns about the assertion of extraterritorial jurisdiction under US law.
	The US is, of course, a key partner in our mission to support effective and fair international economic rules and standards. The Foreign Office understands why the US Office of Foreign Assets Control has put in place the kind of measures it has for trade sanctions based on US foreign policy and national security goals. Equally, in the UK, binding United Nations embargoes are implemented by the refusal of export licences for the export of the relevant goods and technology on the "military list" that forms part I of schedule 1 to the Export of Goods, Transfer of Technology and Provision of Technical Assistance (Control) Order 2003. In addition, the supply of such items from the UK, or supply abroad by UK-registered companies and nationals is prohibited by various Orders in Council made under the United Nations Act 1946. It appears that the right hon. Lady's constituent's funds have been frozen under US legislation of a similar nature.
	On the principles for Government intervention in extraterritoriality cases, the right hon. Lady raised very important issues that the Foreign Office is considering. In conjunction with other Departments, we are close to approving a set of guiding principles, drafted in September 2007, for dealing with extraterritorial cases, which will further clarify the Government's position.
	In relation to the right hon. Lady's constituent, I am sure that she agrees that it is important that the Government are able to track the international flow of money as an essential tool in combating terrorism and international crime. I understand that the right hon. Lady's concerns relate to something that appears to have happened solely in the UK, but there are a number of questions to which I would need the answers in order to assist the right hon. Lady and her constituent. Were the constituent's funds transferred to the US or did they remain within the UK at all times? Which entity is holding the funds? Is it a UK or US-registered company?

Ann Widdecombe: I am grateful to the Minister, but my constituent cannot answer those questions. He does not know where his money is. It was last seen in his account in the NatWest. He does not know whether it has been here all the time or whether it has been whizzed out to the US. He transferred money from the NatWest to the Abbey. That could not have been more British, and the transfer went via Citibank. He does not know where it is; I do not know where it is; the American Government know where it is. All I want the Minister to do is to shake them into giving it back to him.

Meg Munn: I understand the right hon. Lady's frustration and that of her constituent. Clearly, I would expect the banks to answer the questions. After all, the right hon. Lady's constituent is a customer of the bank and the bank should respond to such matters.
	However, the right hon. Lady recently wrote to the Foreign Office about the matter and I am wary of saying more on the Floor of the House without having all the relevant facts. On that basis, I invite the right hon. Lady to come and see me and discuss in more detail her constituent's case and the transfer of the funds. I will try to do whatever I can to assist.
	 Question put and agreed to.
	 Adjourned accordingly at twenty-five minutes to Six o'clock.